Paige Bueckers respectfully shuts down ‘media-driven’ Caitlin Clark hype

There have been a lot of comparisons of this year’s No. 1 overall WNBA Draft pick to last year’s — and both women are little tired of it. Paige Bueckers, who joined the Dallas Wings in 2025 after leading the UConn Huskies to the NCAA title and graduating from UConn, spoke about the “media-driven” narrative that has followed the pair at least since they were in high school. 

Bueckers told Cluth Points reporter Joey Mistretta that she stays away from the stories by focusing on “running my own race.” When it comes down to it, she continued, “I don’t think me and Caitlin play at all alike. But I understand growing up in the same class, the same generation, both guards… I don’t know, but I don’t think we play alike.”

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“But also, too, it’s just not worrying about that and like I said, running my own race and staying present every single day. Those comparisons are just media driven, narrative driven. And they’re good for the game in terms of getting people to talk about it and it being a talking point. So I’m sure we both have gotten used to it,” she continued.”

It used to be more difficult for Bueckers, but now she has tools that help her out. “I used to think about it and internalize it a little bit more, but now working on myself, working on being present and embracing the people around me and just working on getting better every single day has kind of helped me… Just like any comparison to anything, any expectations, any pressures, any external things that people think I have to live up to.”

So there you have it, fans: perhaps we can all collectively drop this now.