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What did Paige Bueckers reveal in her WNBA rookie debut?

DALLAS — Napheesa Collier texted Paige Bueckers Friday morning. From one UConn champion to another, Collier wished the rookie well. “Good luck tonight!” Collier wrote. “Don’t do too much against us, wait till your next game.”

Waiting isn’t in Bueckers’ DNA. As someone who has suffered through major injuries and been forced to sit out a full season of her college career, she never takes a single game for granted. And the ultimate respect she could give a fellow Huskies alumna was competing her hardest and trying to bring the best out of Collier.

Collier, in her seventh season, brought her A-game. Bueckers, in her first WNBA contest, still has room to grow to reach that level, finishing with 10 points on 3-of-10 shooting. But the rookie was happy to finally get an important milestone out of the way in Dallas’ 99-84 opening night defeat.

“Being able to have a starting point and then continue to build off that, and then there’s no more questions about what it’s going to be like for your first WNBA game,” Bueckers said. “Now, we can move on past that. But there’s a long season, a lot of games, and to get the first one under means that we got a lot more left to go.”

The build-up for this game veered away from basketball more than Bueckers would have liked. Bueckers’ jerseys have been on sale since the second she was drafted on April 14. Those jerseys dotted the College Park Center. A halftime act featured a real-time painting of Bueckers’ likeness in the Wings’ colors. Her parents and little brother attended, as well as former college teammate KK Arnold, and her dad told the broadcast he cried during warmups. The game was also against the Minnesota Lynx, the team she grew up rooting for, on the day that her hometown of Hopkins, Minn., renamed itself “Paige Bueckers.”

Bueckers is naturally gifted at staying in the moment and remaining composed. Coach Chris Koclanes called Bueckers “special in how she’s able to handle things with such grace.” Assistant general manager Jasmine Thomas said Bueckers looked like she had already been through 10 training camps during her first preseason.

With all the hubbub surrounding her debut, Bueckers was at least in her element when the ball tipped, even if the Wings have some work to do to figure out how to maximize her skills. Bueckers brought the ball up more often than she did at UConn, forced into a true point guard role because of veteran Ty Harris’ minutes limit. Bueckers’ first attempt to create for her teammates led to an easy look at the rim for NaLyssa Smith out of the pick-and-roll, but Smith smoked the finish. Several more potential assists left Bueckers’ stat line emptier than expected.

Bueckers and All-Star shooting guard Arike Ogunbowale weren’t paired up in actions frequently. Ogunbowale was more comfortable attacking in transition and beating her defender off the dribble rather than working off the ball with Bueckers directing traffic. Similarly, Bueckers worked more often to create her own shots in isolation, successfully drawing fouls but unable to use that scoring gravity to generate looks for teammates. The pair combined for just one assist, when Ogunbowale hit Bueckers for a jumper on a drive-and-kick.

“Being able to get to my spot, I thought that happened. Shots just didn’t go in tonight, but I can’t control that,” Bueckers said.

Defensively, Bueckers noted that the size of WNBA forwards is something she has to get used to. Having credibly defended fours in college, Bueckers was a little out of her depth against the likes of Collier (34 points) and Jess Shepard (15 points), each of whom took advantage of the rookie in the post. Bueckers will have to get stronger to survive in those matchups, but collectively, Dallas has to be better defensively to avoid putting Bueckers on an island against bigger, more physical players.

The Wings looked like a team with only three returners, one of whom barely saw the floor outside of garbage time, while the Lynx brought back the core of a team that was one possession away from winning last season’s championship. The chemistry players are developing off the court didn’t translate in competition.

There were moments when Bueckers thought a player would be cutting, and they didn’t come to meet the ball, or the opposite occurred and Bueckers threw the ball to a spot that a teammate had just vacated. Even as Bueckers learns Dallas’ offensive sets at a speed uncommon for a rookie, she still must learn how to get on the same page as teammates.

Those growing pains were expected, but they don’t leave Bueckers any more satisfied about where she currently stands in her professional progression. As she evaluated her performance postgame, Bueckers was clear that merely getting to the WNBA and playing on the same stage as players she admires like Collier wasn’t the goal.

“You get to the point where you reach your dreams, and then you want to take off with it and see what you can do with it,” Bueckers said. “Just getting to the dream is not enough, so (I want to) continue to build on that.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Dallas Wings, WNBA

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