“I think Paige is more complete,” the Seattle Storm star Lexie Brown weighed in on the Bueckers vs. Clark debate. Bueckers has not even debuted in the WNBA, and people are already touting her as better than the best rookie the league has ever seen. And the surprising part is that it is not even an unpopular opinion!

She was picked up by the Dallas Wings as the No. 1 draft pick, and she is set to have a rough rookie season, according to many experts and fans. The Wings are ranked 10th out of 13 in the Sports Illustrated power rankings, and those three places are probably given because of Paige Bueckers, according to Stephen A. Smith.

Smith said on ESPN, “We’re not expecting much from Dallas this year. We know that they’ve only been to the playoffs; they only advanced to the second round a couple of times over the last several years. we know they’re not that great… but they will be because of… Paige.”

Dallas ended the 2024 season in 11th place with a 9-31 record, but the team is almost entirely fresh, on and off the court, with the 2025 regular season approaching. This offseason, the franchise has undergone sweeping changes even beyond the court, beginning with the hiring of veteran executive and coach Curt Miller as general manager, taking over the role from owner and President Greg Bibb.

Soon after, Latricia Trammell became the franchise’s third straight coach to depart after two seasons. She was replaced by USC assistant Chris Koclanes. They also moved on from most of their attack from last season in Satou Sabally and Natasha Howard.  So what Smith means is Paige will bring improvement and just like Clark dragged Indiana Fever last year, Paige might just do the same with the Wings this season.

She did have a slow start in the preseason, scrambling her way against the Aces in her debut game. Bueckers scored 10 points in 23 minutes, shooting 4-of-7 from the field, including two three-pointers, along with four rebounds and one assist. She had some highlights in the game but visibly struggled against more physical WNBA players. She is improving day by day, as evidenced by her bullet one-handed pass to Arike Ogunbowale in the blowout win against the Toyota Antelopes.

The Wings flew around defensively during the preseason, but you could tell they were still trying to nail the particulars of their help and rotation principles. Koclanes is a first-time head coach and he will go against coaches who are a lot more experienced and tactically astute. The season goes by quickly and the Wings have to get it together fast. Bueckers’ journey starts on May 16 against the Minnesota Lynx, last year’s WNBA Finals runner-up.

Nostradamus exists? This photographer’s 2013-prediction was right about Paige Bueckers

In the sports world, there are a few iconic social media moments that become immortal in history, like someone slandering Lionel Messi on YouTube when he debuted and then going on to do the exact same things multiple times the comment said he wouldn’t. On the flip side, we have the more positive side of social media, as this guy predicted in 2013 when she was just 11 years old that she is different.

Gary Knox, a photographer for KARE 11, a local television station in Minneapolis. One day in 2013, he was just showing up for his daughter, who played basketball. He was also running a girls’ basketball recruiting website at the time and snapped a photo that will go down in history as one of the most legendary photos in women’s basketball.

What he wrote is even more iconic, putting her talent alongside the greatest women’s basketball player of all time, Diana Taurasi. He captioned a photo of an 11-year-old Paige Bueckers, “Remember the name: Paige Bueckers. 6th grade, think Diana Taurasi. Best 6th grade G I’ve ever seen. St. Louis Park.”

Diana Taurasi comparisons are rare for WNBA players, forget 11-year-olds.  The spark was there in Bueckers right from the moment she held the basketball. But there is still time for this prophecy to completely come true, as Bueckers is yet to display her magic in the WNBA but her graph is on the upward trajectory for sure.

“I guess it was kind of crazy for me to compare her to Diana Taurasi,” Knox said in a recent interview with CT Insider. “But I think if you would have walked in the gym back then, it wasn’t hard to see.” The right eyes look at a player and they just know; it’s not something you can point out. It is not about the statistics or the excel sheets graphs, talent is all about what you feel.

Bueckers’ exploits in college and high school are well documented, she starred for Hopkins High School, after which she went on to another level in college at UConn. Winning a national title and being the first draft pick in the WNBA has put her on the map as one of the most popular players too.

If she plays her cards right and becomes the player we think she could be, she could well go band for band with Caitlin Clark, who has already shown what she is made of. Bueckers gets to make her WNBA debut in Dallas against her hometown Minnesota Lynx, the team she grew up watching.