Paige Bueckers is matching the hype, and then some, as the No. 1 pick for the Wings

ARLINGTON, Texas — 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.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball