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When Caitlin Clark became a pro, three-time WNBA champion Diana Taurasi said “reality is coming” for the former Iowa standout.
Before Dallas Wings rookie Paige Bueckers made her professional debut, Taurasi said the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA draft will become “ the best player in the league, for sure.”
The WNBA legend struck a slightly different tone for the fellow UConn product.
But her reaction reflected the general sentiment WNBA players shared about Bueckers’ arrival, which contrasts with the somewhat frosty reception Clark received from some corners of the league.
Ahead of Bueckers’ debut for the Wings against the Minnesota Lynx, MVP front-runner Napheesa Collier praised “Paige, her family, the way she plays.” When the Los Angeles Sparks came to town June 6, Bueckers appeared chummy with Kelsey Plum, draping her arm around the two-time WNBA champion.
While Clark, the Indiana Fever’s No. 1 pick last season, was beloved by the public (and had the viewership numbers to prove it), Bueckers has been heralded as “the league’s rookie.”
On Friday at American Airlines Center, the two standouts will meet for the first time as professionals as the Wings welcome the Indiana Fever for “A Night in Dallas.” It will showcase the future of the WNBA, but also the vastly different perceptions that follow the popular 23-year-olds: Bueckers, the surgical “league rookie” with the UConn pedigree, and Clark, the pure-scorer media darling who willed herself into the national spotlight at Iowa.
Despite their differences in style, personality and reception from fans and peers, Bueckers and Clark are the forces elevating women’s hoops.
“They’re very aware of what they mean to the game right now,” basketball Hall of Famer and Wings broadcaster Nancy Lieberman told The Dallas Morning News this week. “They’re going to help the veterans lift this league. I mean, we’ve got more millionaires in this league than ever before.”
The league rookie
Bueckers hasn’t quite reached the same level of popularity with the public as Clark, who leads the league in fan voting for the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game and has 3.4 million Instagram followers.
But the Wings star, who has 2.6 million Instagram followers, has been a household name for longer. She was the top-rated girls basketball prospect in the Class of 2020, ranking higher than Clark and future stars such as Angel Reese and Cameron Brink.
Bueckers, who won a national championship at UConn in April, has long been lauded for her efficiency and high basketball IQ. That skillset made her a great fit at UConn, where she joined a sorority of all-time greats that includes Taurasi, Collier, Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird.
But Bueckers was a known quantity before she joined the Huskies. She was the first high school girls basketball player to be featured on the cover of Slam magazine.
Her star continued to rise throughout her freshman season in 2021, when she won Naismith National Player of the Year and an ESPY award. Bueckers was the “it” girl in women’s hoops, playing for arguably the biggest brand in the sport.
At the start of the 2025 WNBA season, 15 former UConn players appeared on 10 team rosters. And many more have passed through the league. Social media users have compared Bueckers’ ascendance to the league to that of a younger sibling or friend turning 21.
“Paige is a great person on so many levels of what she does and how she treats people,” Lieberman said. “Maybe they know Paige a little bit better than they know Caitlin when she first came into the league.”
Related:With Fever-Wings matchup looming, what’s the history between Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers?
The media darling
Bueckers, who struggled with various injuries throughout her UConn career, missed the entire 2022-23 season after suffering an ACL tear.
That was the year Clark broke out. She captured national attention ahead of the 2023 Final Four in Dallas, when her Iowa squad faced LSU for the national championship.
Iowa didn’t win, but the moment Reese pointed to her ring finger, seemingly taunting Clark and her teammates, sparked an on-court rivalry and made Clark a household name.
The following season, Clark cemented her status as a national icon while becoming the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer among men’s and women’s basketball players. She willed Iowa, not exactly a women’s basketball blueblood, back to the national championship game, after scoring 21 points in a 71-69 win over Bueckers and UConn in the semifinal.
Iowa lost to South Carolina, but Clark had won the hearts of millions with her entertaining play, hallmarked by her ability to drain logo threes. An average of 18.9 million viewers watched the 2024 national championship game, the most watched women’s college basketball game ever.
South Carolina played for a second consecutive national championship in 2025, but the game drew only 8.5 million viewers. The difference? The Gamecocks were playing Bueckers’ Huskies instead of Clark’s Hawkeyes.
Social perceptions
As Clark’s star rose, she found herself at the center of polarizing conversations about race in sports.
Clark became the next “‘Great White Hope’ in a league dominated by queer Black athletes,” according to the 2025 Politics in Sports Media report from The University of Texas’ Center for Sports Communication and Media.
She acknowledged the discourse after being named Time magazine’s 2024 Athlete of the Year.
“I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege,” Clark said.
Bueckers has been vocal about the issue for years, putting her ahead of the curve in a sense and earning the respect of peers. When she accepted her ESPY for Best Female College Athlete in 2021, she dedicated much of her speech to highlighting Black women and their contributions.
Clark and Bueckers alike have received pushback for their comments, but some of Clark’s fans have thrust the Fever star into a narrative from which she has tried to distance herself.
The rhetoric drew criticism from WNBA supporters and veteran players who had long been fighting for exposure and respect.
“We’re talking about a faction of that group that is pushing racist agendas and is pushing hate and creating divisiveness online, acting as fans, acting as Fever fans, acting as Caitlin fans,” Bird, a former Seattle Storm star, said last year on her “A Touch More” podcast.
Clark’s rise put more eyes on a league that has been historically marginalized. It didn’t sit well with current and former players, along with longtime supporters, that many new fans — and some of the biggest voices in basketball — have already crowned Clark the best to ever play the game and the savior of the league, which has struggled to generate revenue.
NBA legend Charles Barkley said on Inside the NBA on TNT last year that the WNBA owed Clark for the money and visibility she brought to the league, addressing the somewhat cold reception she had received from veteran players.
“You women out there, y’all petty, man,” Barkley said. “Hey, LeBron, you’re 100% right on these girls hating on Caitlin Clark. Y’all petty, girls. I expect men to be petty because we’re the most insecure group in the world. Y’all should be thanking that girl for getting y’all … private charters, all the money and visibility she’s bringing to the WNBA.”
Multiple WNBA figures pushed back on Barkley’s comments, including reigning MVP A’Ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces and Aces coach Becky Hammon, who suggested the narrative was tired and overblown.
“I think this narrative of ‘everybody hating on Caitlin Clark’ and even the Black and white thing — knock it off. It’s not there,” Hammon said last season.
Related:Paige Bueckers has cashed in on sponsorships. Can she help her WNBA teammates do the same?
Win for women’s hoops
As Bueckers and Clark prepare to face each other for the first time as professionals, comparisons will continue to swirl. Bueckers said it used to bother her, but she’s committed to running her own race.
“Comparison is the thief of joy,” Bueckers said during Wings media day last month. “[I focus] on myself, how I can better myself, how we can better the team.”
Clark and Bueckers, who were once Team USA teammates, have expressed respect for each other. And as fellow No. 1 picks, they’re uplifting their respective organizations.
Clark reportedly helped generate $36 million in economic impact for Indianapolis by playing for the Fever. Before the WNBA season started in May, the Wings had sold merchandise in all 50 states and 23 different countries since drafting Bueckers in April. At that point, the organization had earned more revenue from individual ticket sales in the previous month than it did all of last season, which was a record year for Dallas.
“Paige is certainly making a difference for us. Paige is her own person. Paige is her own player,” Wings CEO and managing partner Greg Bibb told The News in May. “And I think Paige will be additive for us just like Caitlin was additive for Indiana. And Paige will be additive for the league just like Caitlin was additive for the league.”
The increased media visibility and lucrative sponsorship deals they’ve generated, which in turn benefited their peers, have surpassed what Lieberman and women’s hoopers from previous generations once dreamed of.
“They’re pioneers,” she said.
Find more WNBA coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
