Despite the inevitable comparisons, Paige Bueckers' rookie season doesn't need to live up to Caitlin Clark's

rewrite this content and keep HTML tags (remove this from content : rewrite this content and keep HTML tags)

It’s a matter of circumstances, of timing and uncontrollable events, that the two names are intertwined. The duo lives in a stratosphere of one-name acknowledgement. Of constant attention and critiques. And, once again as they ball on the same courts, of unrelenting comparisons.

Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark, who entered the collegiate ranks as the two best point guards in the 2020 class, will reunite on the professional level on two distinct planes. That fact won’t stop the inevitable comparisons already swirling.

Bueckers is the revered rookie as the Dallas Wings’ No. 1 WNBA Draft selection amid the annual whirlwind that picks players up at the NCAA Final Four and plops them in a preseason game within a month’s time. Clark is the Indiana Fever’s sophomore superstar, headlining MVP odds and charging into a more comfortable environment with a revamped roster built to win a championship.

Though they line up at the same position, they’ve never played the same style. Clark is more of a scorer with a court-bending range. Bueckers is more efficient, with defensive versatility. To ask each to match the other defeats the point of their individual magic. And to expect Bueckers to follow exactly in Clark’s footsteps is ignoring their distinctive context. It’s fair to neither.

Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers have been compared ever since they entered college, and that won’t stop with both now in the WNBA. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

(Steph Chambers via Getty Images)

Bueckers, who watched Clark become a cultural icon from the sidelines in 2023 while rehabbing a torn ACL, long ago dealt with unrelenting narratives of comparison. She used to internalize it. Working with a sports psychologist, she learned to stay present and focused.

“The main things that we’ve taken that’s really helped the mental side of the game is running my own race, not running a race of comparison,” Bueckers said. “Comparison is the thief of joy. So it’s just focusing on myself, how I can better myself, how we can better the team, and just losing myself in others.”

There are throughlines for nearly every rookie in WNBA history. Time collapses in from the rush of a national championship game to training camp. In the first days of her second camp, Clark said a lot came at her that first year. New teammates, new coaches, new facilities. Living out of a hotel, finding a place to live, learning the city.

“Any rookie coming into this league, you experience the same thing,” Clark said. “It’s all just really new. You’re starting a new chapter of your life and you’re trying to get your feet under you.”

For all the so-called “generational talents” long established as No. 1 overall draft picks, few have reached the numbers Clark amassed as a rookie. The only one better was Candace Parker, a true one-of-one who may never be outmatched in a unique MVP-winning season.

Clark led the league in assists (8.4 apg) and 3-pointers (3.1 per game), ranked seventh in scoring (19.2 ppg), was top 20 in rebounding (5.7 rpg) and blocks (0.7 bpg), and 13th in free throw percentage (90.6% on 4.5 attempts per game). The Rookie of the Year led all ROY winners in average assists, nearly doubling second-place Tameka Johnson (5.2), and ranked third in average scoring. She finished fourth in MVP voting, surrounded by the game’s veteran stars.

In a pantheon of greats, Parker and Clark statistically stand alone. It doesn’t mean Bueckers won’t have a great year of her own. The Rookie of the Year trophy is still hers to lose.

It’s all situational. Often forgotten, or even purposely ignored, is the bubble each exists in, separate from the other. In comparing two players entering the league in different seasons and on different teams, there are a flood of variables and few constants to be found. Clark noted the difficulty even in talking about her two Fever rosters.

“You can’t compare the two,” Clark said. “It’s two completely different teams.”

Clark joined Aliyah Boston ahead of her as the Fever’s back-to-back No. 1 overall picks, a rare position for any team, especially to add two young players of their caliber, anchoring each end of the offense. And Clark’s rookie class, unlike nearly any before it, was able to take a month-long breather during the Olympic break. Clark and the Fever were one of the league’s best teams in the final month.

Indiana was a franchise mired in recent disappointment — not dissimilar to Dallas’ current plight — that became frantic to snap a seven-year playoff skid. In a league in which eight of 12 teams made the postseason, they became quite cozy in the basement while rattling off three consecutive seasons with six or fewer wins ahead of Boston’s arrival.

The historic nature of the come-up fuels a lore few can match. It was merely two seasons ago that Dallas reached the WNBA semifinals, running up against the buzzsaw that was the Las Vegas Aces (featuring their three consecutive No. 1 draft picks). It was the Wings’ third consecutive playoff appearance.

They haven’t been great, but they haven’t been horrible.

Still, the Wings bring their own history for Bueckers to make right, and that’s the barometer for her success. Can she adjust to the game quickly? Can she remain the efficient standard bearer of her UConn years? Can she be the franchise player who changes the trajectory of an organization? The pure numbers are secondary.

“[I] have been really encouraged and impressed with how quickly she’s picking things up, and how quickly she is stepping and finding her opportunities to lead,” first-year head coach Chris Koclanes said on Wednesday during Wings media day. “And that’s something we’re really talking about is with this group, with this youthful group, where is our leadership going to come from? I’m empowering everybody to find their spaces and opportunities to lead.”

Those are among the metrics Bueckers said she would use to measure her first year.

“Success, it looks like being a great leader, trying to get better every single day, lots of learning, lots of asking questions and just being here, being present with the team,” Bueckers said. “We’re all trying to grow. We’re all trying to get better.”

Nearly everything is new in Dallas, from the front office all the way down the bench. Of the 14 players who saw minutes a year ago, only Arike Ogunbowale, Teaira McCowan and Maddy Siegrist return. Bueckers can be the franchise-defining spark that sets off a golden era. She’ll likely do it without exactly matching any of the rookies before her, Clark included.

“We’re setting the foundation for what we want to look like in the future,” Bueckers said.

In that aspect, it’s fair to compare. They will lift their franchises in their own distinctive, talented ways. It already seems inevitable they’ll be meeting in the postseason for seasons to come.

Source link