Diana Taurasi believes Wings rookie Paige Bueckers will become ‘the best player in the league, for sure’

Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings are off to a tough start to the 2025 WNBA season, losing their first four games of the year. Bueckers, the No. 1 overall pick in this past April’s WNBA Draft, is averaging 13.3 points, 6.3 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game on 34.0/33.3/77.8 shooting splits, as she makes the always challenging adjustment to professional basketball. 

We saw last year how Caitlin Clark went through early season struggles (as did the Indiana Fever as a team) until she got her feet underneath her and went on to an All-WNBA campaign and was a top-5 finisher in MVP voting. Patience is not always afforded young stars as they enter the league, but Bueckers’ early season performance has done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of one of her biggest fans. 

After retiring following one of the greatest women’s basketball careers in history, Diana Taurasi has been watching her fellow UConn alum closely and she sees not just a bright future for Bueckers, but expects her to eventually claim the title as the best player in the WNBA. 

“The WNBA, it’s a different beast. There’s different challenges, as an individual, as a team,” Taurasi said during a recent episode of The Athletic Women’s Basketball Show. “When you get drafted No. 1 you’re usually going to a team that’s rebuilding, that’s starting to something new, so there’s a lot of challenges when you get to a team and a franchise that’s rebuilding. You have to change your outlook on wins and losses. You take the wins as far as getting better every single game, and as you can tell with Paige from game 1 to game 2, she was a different player. And from game 2 to game 10, she’s going to be a different player, and that’s going to go for their team as well as they learn each other on the court and off the court as well. 

“The one thing I know about Paige, she’s so grounded, she’s so patient, she’s so prepared. And I think she’s learned that over the past four or five years. And all those things she learned at Connecticut, they’re going to change the way you look at that team. One day, she’s gonna end up being the best player in the league, for sure.” 

Taurasi certainly knows about the journey from being a hyped No. 1 prospect to fulfilling on that promise as the best player in the world, and she sees something of a kindred spirit in Bueckers. The point about patience is interesting because Bueckers does have a unique perspective having had to go through injury rehabs, lost seasons and coming up short at UConn prior to finally winning the national title this year. That kind of experience should help her see the long-term view in Dallas that not every rookie is able to embrace. 

As for becoming the best player in the world, Bueckers is going to face plenty of stiff competition over the next decade-plus. Right now that crown belongs to A’ja Wilson, but Napheesa Collier is looking to make her case for that title this season. Long-term, Bueckers will be battling Caitlin Clark throughout their careers, while Juju Watkins and others will look to throw their hats into the ring as future stars of the WNBA.