Paige Bueckers used a Steph Curry quote to pacify the Wings fans last year. “I remember Steph Curry, before the Warriors became the Warriors, tweeting out, like, ‘just stick with us… We’re gonna figure it out.’” Bueckers said last year, “That’s the message.” Bueckers took a page out of Curry’s playbook when it came to her attitude. However, the Wings star is also “mimicking” the best shooter in the league to match his gravity. 

Paige Bueckers topped a new statistic last year, Gravity. It’s the newest advanced metric, introduced in 2025. It quantifies how much defensive attention a player draws, both on- and off-ball. Bueckers led the WNBA last year with 13%. That is interpreted as 13% more attention than average in the league. To sharpen this skill set of hers, Bueckers has revealed her methodology to be the Jupiter of the league. 

“Just to read what the defense starts giving me: start off the game aggressively, start off the second half aggressively, and just see a lot of single coverage,” Bueckers started. “And then towards the end of the game, they’re driving in and everything, so to be able to play off of that and just read what the defense is, giving me that and being selfless too.” 

There are a few things that force defenders to pay attention to Paige Bueckers. Even if she is not a high-volume shooter, Bueckers is among the most efficient in the league. She shot at 47.7% last year even with this extra attention. That number is highest among guards scoring 15 or more points per game. So, when she gets the ball, it’s more likely she scores or creates an opportunity, keeping defenders on the toes. 

Then there is the factor of her rest of the team being subpar last year. The Wings limped to just 10 wins and Bueckers was undoubtedly the best player on that roster. That certainly inflated some of Bueckers’ gravity as the opponents sought to shut her down. To further prove that, look at this year’s numbers so far. Bueckers is still up there but the number has dropped to a 7.8% because the WIngs have added other weapons like Alanna Smith and Jessica Shepherd. 

Last year, she averaged 19.2 points and 3.2 assists regardless and could have averaged even more if not for that extra defense on her. Bueckers also looks at the absolute GOAT of Gravity, Steph Curry, to improve her screening. 

“Being able to get off, being able to be a screener. I mean, if you watch Steph Curry, he’s probably the best screener in the NBA,” Bueckers said. “He has the best gravity in the NBA, so it’s a sort of mimic after him and his off-ball movement is off-ball screening and selflessness. I’ve actually learned from that.”

Curry is universally acknowledged as one of the players with the highest gravity (does not appear on 2025-26 charts, likely because of limited minutes). In January he led the league with a 20.2% average gravity. He is running a marathon from one end of the court to the other, taking multiple defenders with him. 

He often has multiple gravity assists per game, taking multiple defenders with him to open up the lane to the rim. In the case of Paige Bueckers, she is not as prolific of a three-point shooter as Curry, but her middy is as accurate as it can be. She shot 44.5% on 5.6 attempts per game from the midrange last year, which is lethal in a different area altogether.

It only matters if the rest of the offense knows how to pounce on it, and that’s exactly where Dallas is still trying to evolve.

Paige Bueckers Insists Chemistry Will Come Despite Minnesota Loss 

The Wings were on the brink of defeating the former No. 1 seed. They led by 12 points at one point and seemed to be cruising to another victory. However, the defense crumbled in the final few minutes as Olivia Miles dissected their team. “It’s real talk, and it’s accountability. That’s what I told them. I go, ‘There’s selfishness in this locker room,'” coach Jose Fernandez said after that game. So, there is some disconnect among the players but Bueckers believes these problems can be fixed quickly. 

“I think most, if not all of our mistakes and miscommunication are fixable,” she said (via DallasHoopsJournal). “We saw that in film, we saw that during the game,” Bueckers said. It’s just stuff that we can clean up. We feel like we are being ourselves, so being able to have that realization and talk about what we needed to improve. I feel like we want to continue to get better. We watched the film, we digested it and we are going to keep moving forward.”

Such things are bound to happen early in the season. There are a lot of new faces on this team, including the coaching staff and they are striving to take that next step. The Wings were a 10-win team just last season and there is a learning curve to become a playoff team. The more they play together and actively try and improve, the better this team should be than last year.