According to Howard Megdal of The Next, the UConn Huskies guard is more open to playing for a different team next year. Or she may just stay in college for another year.
For most college prospects who are the projected No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, they accept the near-reality of playing for a certain team. For Connecticut Huskies super senior guard Paige Bueckers, she has a bit more leverage to carve her own path.
According to Howard Megdal of The Next, wrote that WNBA talent evaluators, believe that Bueckers will try to force her way out of playing for the Dallas Wings, who hold the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft.
The reasons ultimately come down to the Wings’ dysfunction over the past decade. They have changed coaches over the past several seasons. They just replaced their general manager, changing from team CEO Greg Bibb to former Los Angeles Sparks head coach Curt Miller.
Megdal doesn’t specifically say what team Bueckers may want to play for in the WNBA next season. However, he does say that if she lists her preferred destinations, the Wings could get multiple competing offers for her.
If Bueckers were to simply pick one destination, that greatly limits Dallas’ options for a return in trade. If she provides several alternatives — say, Los Angeles, Washington and Golden State — the Wings could instead look to engineer a trade with multiple bidders, driving up the potential return. (The more Bueckers accommodates more suitors, of course, the less talent whoever acquires her will have to build around her.)
On Swish Appeal, SB Nation’s women’s basketball blog, site manager Cat Ariall took this as Bueckers’ camp, believing that the Sparks, Golden State Valkyries, and …. you guessed it, the Washington Mystics being a preferred destination for her.
None of this is meant to imply that Bueckers is trying to force her way to another team, let alone the Mystics. However, if I want to keep your hopes up, the Mystics do have one of Bueckers’ former teammates in Aaliyah Edwards. Stefanie Dolson is also a veteran and a UConn alumna. . And they have valuable trade assets in Brittney Sykes and Ariel Atkins, who could be the centerpieces of a hypothetical trade in which the Mystics could receive the No. 1 overall pick.
That said, the Mystics’ situation has become uncertain this past month because General Manager Mike Thibault and Head Coach Eric Thibault aren’t on the team. Therefore, I’m not sold on Bueckers playing for the Mystics next year because of that alone.
And Bueckers still has more options to begin her professional league career. She could decide to stay in college for another year and go pro in 2026 because of past injuries and the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. She could also decide to play in other professional leagues in the 2025-26 season as well, such as Unrivaled, Athletes Unlimited or by playing for a EuroLeague Women team, though the last option isn’t likely.
Still, it is interesting that Bueckers and the Mystics have come up in the same sentence after the WNBA Draft Lottery. And it’s also interesting that Megdal, who is well-connected in the WNBA, isn’t writing that Bueckers and her camp want to play for a team like her home state team, the Minnesota Lynx or the Connecticut Sun.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.