“She’s going to impact us, and she just impacts winning,” Wings general manager Curt Miller said when the franchise received the first overall pick for the 2025 WNBA draft. He did imagine a bright future for his franchise. And when Dallas Wings landed the UConn superstar on draft night, the streets in Arlington were filled with Paige’s billboards and posters, welcoming her to the city.

The Wings not only got an impactful player on the court but also an influential star, and the team is already benefiting from Paige’s arrival. Ticket sales, merchandise sales, and well, enthusiasm are at an all-time high for both the team and the city.

While the franchise is reaping the effects of Paige’s arrival, the league is also looking to cash in on the megastar. A season ago, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s addition to the WNBA did a world of good for its popularity and expansion plans. Paige is not falling behind. After inking a deal with Ally Financial, the league’s official banking partner, the former UConn Husky has added more to the bag.

The league now has the Dallas rookie, Paige, on their app’s visuals – alongside Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Napheesa Colliers, Aja Wilson, and Sabrina Ionescu. An important thing to notice here is that Paige has yet to set foot in the WNBA games. But given she was the fourth-most marketable athlete in college, this really wasn’t a surprise.

Nonetheless, this is a huge recognition for the rookie. Sharing the space alongside the league’s great, it represents Paige’s potential as a No.1 pick coming off a championship run and as the program’s leading scorer in the NCAA tournament. But if you ask her teammates, they may remain unfazed by whatever this feature may represent– fame or game.

In a recent TikTok video Dallas Wings, the players answered the question about who will score the first basket in the new 2025 season. More than half of the roster backed veteran guard Arike Ogunbowale and even DeJonai Carrington to be the first scorer for the Wings this season.

In the first preseason game, Bueckers’ first points came with about 4 minutes into the first quarter. Carrington, just being the aggressive attacker, had went in for the first two points while Ogunbowale, the 6-year veteran took 6 minutes. The rookie, however, ended up scoring the best of them all at 10 points. And they would celebrate alongside the fans, too when she landed her first basket.

So this is all fun and games, and maybe a little reliance on experience. WNBA app visuals feature or not, first points or not, the Wings are all in for having Bueckers on their team. Each of them had a welcome social media post for her went Cathy Engelbert called her name on draft night while Ty Hariss is already out her planning out their backcourt.  “I like that idea of how many possibilities we can have in the offense. If we want Paige to bring up the ball, me and Arike can run the wings, and vice versa… And just watching Paige in college, she’s going to be super dynamic,” she says.

Well, the No.1 draft pick is no less of a team player herself.

Paige Bueckers is all about ‘Team’

Even though her personal accolades and achievements have set her apart from her teams, Paige has always emphasised being a team player first. She was always hyping up her teammates’ performances and encouraging them to do better. Even on her draft night, when all her UConn teammates were present to see her getting selected to the WNBA, she talked about sisterhood.

And the unforgettable ‘Kaitlyn Chen? Is it Kaitlyn Chen?’ moment where Paige Buckets halted her interview to shout out to Kaitlyn Chen’s selection by Golden State Valkyries. That’s how much she is involved with her teammates. Moving on to her new team, a three-week-old team, to be fair, to say, Paige is excited for her new Hooper colleagues too…

Speaking during the first week of camp, Bueckers talked about unity, sacrifice, and resilience. “It’s never about one person,” she told the group. “It’s about how we lift each other up, how we respond to adversity, and how we create something bigger than ourselves.” It was her clear and loud message, trying to form a new sisterhood in Texas too. The team has a megastar on its roster now, and it will be interesting to see how the Dallas Wings franchise makes use of her popularity and also where Paige’s power could take them in the coming years.