PAIGE BUECKERS IS MATCHING THE HYPE, AND THEN SOME, AS THE NO. 1 PICK FOR THE WINGS
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Paige Bueckers has been just about everything the Dallas Wings hoped as the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft, matching Caitlin Clark from a year ago as a rookie All-Star starter while shouldering a heavy load for a rebuilding team.
The former UConn star is also passing her most predictable test: handling losing when she didn’t have much experience with it in college.
Beyond managing the losing, Bueckers has helped engineer quite the response. Although they just lost to Phoenix by 30 points after beating the Mercury in their previous game, the Wings are 5-3 since blowing an 11-point lead in the last four minutes of an 88-84 loss at Las Vegas that dropped them to 1-11.
“Credit to Paige,” said Chris Koclanes, a rookie himself as a head coach. “Her mindset and her intention into the mental side of the game, she’s resilient. She’s not discouraged at all. She’s in there, she’s positive. She knows there is a larger vision here and that you’ve got to go through some of this tough stuff early to ultimately get to where you want to go.”
Bueckers missed four of the losses while recovering from a concussion and then an illness. She also sat the second night of a back-to-back with a sore right knee, and the Wings won for the first time without her.
A three-time Associated Press All-American during a UConn career capped by the storied program’s first national championship in nine years, Bueckers lost 13 times in four seasons with the Huskies. She’s at 10 in less than two months with the Wings.
“Just staying disciplined in your habits and not changing who you are based on the results, but sticking to your process and how you do things,” Bueckers said. “Regardless of the winning and losing, just enjoy coming to work every single day. It’s been fun to enjoy the process. You never want to get used to losing, but you also don’t want to be used to being result-oriented.”
Clark, the first overall pick last year by Indiana, is a captain in just her second All-Star appearance, and Bueckers’ bid makes it three years in a row to have a rookie starter. Clark’s teammate with the Fever, Aliyah Boston, did it in 2023.
Bueckers leads the Wings — and all WNBA rookies — in scoring (18.7 points per game), assists (5.7) and steals (1.8), which means she’s well on her way to matching another Clark accomplishment from a year ago: Rookie of the Year.
Even though the Wings plummeted to 9-31 last season — just a year after winning a playoff series for the first time since moving to the Dallas area in 2016 — they still had 2024 All-Star Game MVP Arike Ogunbowale in their backcourt.
Bueckers fit perfectly as a facilitator alongside one of the league’s elite scorers, but clearly has proven to be a scoring option equal to Ogunbowale, who has missed the past two games with a thumb injury.
“I’m asking her to do a ton right now,” Koclanes said of his 23-year-old star. “Having her bring the ball up the floor every single time and then also score and also facilitate. How she’s been able to handle that has just been extremely impressive.”
The Wings overhauled most of the rest of their roster this past offseason. First-year general manager Curt Miller is now tinkering, having recently sent NaLyssa Smith, one of the acquisitions, to Las Vegas for a 2027 first-round pick.
There’s no question the Wings plan to build around Bueckers.
“I think her greatest gift is she makes everyone better around her,” Miller said. “She’s a humble superstar. She’s just had a remarkable start with a lot of pressure. And coming off a very long collegiate season where, chasing that national championship, you can’t imagine what the weight on her shoulders must have felt like.”
Repeating one other thing Clark did might be difficult for Bueckers. The Fever rebounded from a 1-8 start to make the playoffs last year before getting swept by Connecticut in a best-of-three series in the first round.
A postseason bid is likely to require getting back to .500, and the schedule over the next month has plenty of playoff contenders, including three meetings with the defending champion New York Liberty.
There is almost a weeklong break in there, but not for Bueckers. She’ll be at the All-Star Game at Indianapolis on July 19. She won’t be looking at that recognition as any sort of validation.
“I don’t live to anybody else’s expectations or what I’m supposed to look like,” Bueckers said. “I just go out there and play every single game and every single possession as it is. And the results may vary. So whatever that looks like on any given night, you live with the results.”
She’s living by those words as a rookie.
REBECCA ALLEN’S HOT SHOOTING GIVES SKY SEASON SWEEP OF WINGS
Rebecca Allen scored 27 points and Angel Reese notched a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds to help the host Chicago Sky defeat the Dallas Wings 87-76 on Wednesday.
Rachel Banham added 11 points for Chicago (6-13), which stopped a two-game losing streak while sending Dallas (6-15) to its second straight defeat.
Reese stretched her streak of double-doubles to seven games, but her WNBA-record run of games with at least 15 boards ended at six.
The Sky led by as many as 15 points in the second half while shooting 50.9 percent compared to 36 percent for Dallas. The Wings drew to within six points down the stretch before Chicago pulled away.
Li Yueru had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Wings. All-Star guard Paige Bueckers followed with 17 points while JJ Quinerly chipped in 16.
Allen finished one point shy of her career high while finishing 9-for-13 from the floor, including a 5-for-7 effort from long range.
Allen paced Chicago to a 45-37 lead at the break, scoring 12 first-half points on 4-of-5 shooting. She drilled three long jumpers in the final 2:24 of the second quarter to help the Sky create distance from the Wings.
Bueckers led Dallas with seven first-half points.
With numerous injuries impacting the team, including those to mainstays Arike Ogunbowale (left thumb) and DiJonai Carrington (rib), Dallas started four rookies for the third successive game.
Back in the lineup for the first time since June 24, Sky center Kamilla Cardoso sparked the team off the bench from the outset. Cardoso, who helped Team Brazil to a silver medal at the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup in Santiago, Chile, scored six first-quarter points on 3-for-3 shooting as Chicago took a 19-18 lead after 10 minutes.
Haley Jones contributed four points in 15 minutes for the Wings in her first action in 10 days. Jones started the season with Phoenix and was released from a hardship contract on June 29. Per league rules, she couldn’t rejoin the Wings on a rest-of-season contract until Wednesday.
Chicago earned a three-game sweep of the season series against Dallas. The Sky took both games of a home-and-home on May 29 and 31, winning by five and 11 points, respectively.
ALYSSA THOMAS NETS CAREER HIGH 29, LEADS MERCURY OVER LYNX
Alyssa Thomas scored a career-high 29 points and added eight rebounds as the host Phoenix Mercury climbed closer to the league-leading Minnesota Lynx with a 79-71 victory Wednesday afternoon.
Thomas scored 12 points in the fourth quarter, when the Mercury closed the game on a 19-4 run.
Monique Akoa Makani contributed 13 points, DeWanna Bonner recorded seven points and six rebounds in her return to the Mercury, while Sami Whitcomb tallied 10 points and six assists for Phoenix (14-6), which has won eight of 10.
Courtney Williams registered 21 points and six rebounds and Napheesa Collier chipped in with 18 points and seven rebounds for the Lynx (17-3), who had a five-game winning streak broken in the first game of a four-game, six-day road trip.
The Lynx had won the first two games in the season series. The teams, 1-2 in the league standings, will meet for the fourth and final time July 16 in Minneapolis.
Collier, the WNBA’s leading scorer, had 14 points in the second half after taking only three field goal attempts in the first half. She entered averaging 24.3 points per game.
The Lynx used a 17-6 run to take a 57-52 lead after the third quarter, as Collier and Williams combined for 14 points.
But after Williams beat the shot clock with a 3-pointer for a 67-60 lead midway through the fourth quarter, the Mercury gradually took over behind Thomas.
The Lynx again kept the Mercury at bay from the perimeter. The Mercury, averaging a league-high 10.5 three-pointers per game, misfired on 15 of 16 attempts from three-point range and have made only 9-of-62 in the season series.
Minnesota enjoyed a 36-35 rebounding edge, and their 10 offensive rebounds led to 19 second-chance points. Alanna Smith corralled nine rebounds and Jessica Shepard added seven.
But the Lynx made only 42.9 percent of their field goal attempts and had 18 total turnovers, seven more than the Mercury.
The Mercury shot 46.6 percent from the floor, the first time they shot more than 40 percent against the Lynx this season.
Bonner’s three-point play on a lob pass from Thomas gave the Mercury a 40-37 halftime lead.
Thomas and Bonner, who announced their engagement at the 2023 WNBA All-Star Game, played their first game together since both left the Connecticut Sun after last season.
SUN OVERTAKE STORM TO SNAP 10-GAME SKID
Tina Charles scored 11 of her 29 points in the fourth quarter and Jacy Sheldon added 16 points as the Connecticut Sun ended a franchise-worst 10-game losing streak with a 93-83 win over the visiting Seattle Storm on Wednesday afternoon at Uncasville, Conn.
Bria Hartley scored 15 points and Saniya Rivers added 11 points with seven assists as the Sun (3-16) won for the first time since June 6 at Atlanta. Charles had a team-high 11 rebounds.
Connecticut’s victory came without leading scorer Marina Mabrey, who missed her sixth consecutive game with a knee injury.
Skylar Diggins scored 23 points with seven assists and Gabby Williams added 21 points for the Storm, who went 2-2 on a four-game road trip. Ezi MagBegor scored 13 points, while Nneka Ogwumike added 12 points and 12 rebounds for Seattle (12-8).
Trailing throughout the first three quarters, the Sun tied the score 77-77 with 6:21 remaining on a jumper from Sheldon. Connecticut then took control with a 16-4 spurt for a 93-81 lead on two free throws from Leila Lacan with 1:03 left.
The Sun had a 27-9 scoring advantage in the fourth quarter while shooting 58.8 percent from the floor, while holding the Storm to 21.4 percent over the final 10 minutes.
After trailing by as many 14 points in the first half, the Sun went on a 10-2 run in the third quarter to pull into a 57-57 tie after a three-point play by Rivers. A 5-0 run to close the third gave Storm a 74-66 lead.
Seattle opened an early 17-6 lead and was up 27-18 after one quarter. The Sun trimmed the deficit to 49-41 at halftime, with Connecticut’s Hartley leading all scorers with 15 points. Williams led four Storm scorers in double figures at the half with 12 points.
