Throughout the previous yr, Paige Bueckers has expanded the scope of what it means to be a school athlete. She performed in a Last 4 but in addition grew to become an fairness companion in Unequalled, designed her personal player-edition sneaker for Nike and appeared courtside all through the nation at numerous sporting occasions.
Within the new identify, picture and likeness age of faculty athletics, Bueckers has exerted unprecedented company in her profession and in constructing a model for herself. What the budding famous person nonetheless can’t management is what comes subsequent. Final month, the WNBA Draft lottery all however ensured that Bueckers’ subsequent basketball cease will probably be with the Dallas Wings after they received the No. 1 choose.
For higher or worse, that’s the nature of the draft. Gamers have restricted affect on their vacation spot. They will select to fulfill with or work out with sure groups and probably withhold their medical information, however in the end, groups maintain the majority of the ability.
Bueckers, nonetheless, is in a uncommon scenario the place she wields extra leverage because of her marketability, NIL portfolio and faculty eligibility. (She will return for a sixth season at UConn due to COVID-19 eligibility guidelines.) If she decides in opposition to enjoying for the Wings — and the thrill across the league is that Dallas was not her most popular vacation spot — she might exert no matter levers she will be able to to get the place she desires as quickly as doable.
Though Bueckers has indicated that she is treating this season as her senior yr, she will be able to return to UConn if she doesn’t wish to enter the WNBA in 2025. Whether or not that’s as a result of she is chasing a nationwide championship, prefers a special draft vacation spot or desires to delay her professional profession till the establishment of a brand new WNBA collective bargaining settlement, there are incentives to play another season with the Huskies. Even when Bueckers elects to go professional, she might merely demand a commerce.
Paige Bueckers says she didn’t watch the WNBA Draft Lottery over the weekend
“I principally handled it by specializing in having an amazing follow right this moment” pic.twitter.com/049M5iFilR
— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) November 20, 2024
“There’s simply a whole lot of noise — far more noise by way of rumors, by way of all these issues round ladies’s basketball, now greater than ever,” mentioned ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, who performed at Tennessee till her profession resulted in 2015. “I don’t know if the rumors are true, however that is the primary time I’ve heard it to this diploma.”
Although Bueckers possible can be a star at any WNBA franchise, Dallas doesn’t present probably the most alternatives for a participant with a large built-in fan base and advertising attract. The Wings have been notoriously unstable since transferring to Dallas in 2016. They’ve cycled by way of coaches each two seasons and are trying to find one other. In 2018, a postgame altercation between head coach Fred Williams and CEO Greg Bibb led to Williams dropping his job. Stars haven’t precisely flocked to the Wings in free company, and a few of their highest-profile gamers have publicly bashed the group; Skylar Diggins-Smith known as out the dearth of assist she felt she acquired throughout her being pregnant in 2018-19. A continuing drain of expertise has gone within the different course. Diggins-Smith and Liz Cambage requested out through trades, as did Allisha Grey and Marina Mabrey within the 2023 offseason.
In equity to Dallas, the opposite lottery choices additionally had their flaws. Groups are on the backside of the league for a purpose. Even when Bueckers would relatively have gone to Los Angeles or Washington, the Sparks don’t have a follow facility and are in a four-year playoff drought, and the Mystics don’t have a head coach or normal supervisor and play in a 4,200-seat area.
Given the state of the lottery groups, Bueckers might return to varsity by foregoing her draft eligibility on the finish of the NCAA season and pushing aside the WNBA till 2026. That sadly nonetheless leaves her on the mercy of the lottery, however maybe the specter of enjoying one other season for UConn would encourage the Wings to take a commerce demand critically.
Moreover, it’d behoove her financially to postpone the beginning of her WNBA profession. By coming into this season’s draft, she would lock herself right into a four-year rookie-scale contract that averages $87,000 yearly. Nonetheless, the WNBA will enact a brand new collective bargaining settlement earlier than the 2026 season, one which figures to extend participant compensation.
The final time the league instituted a brand new CBA, second- and third-year gamers had been caught of their rookie contracts from the earlier settlement. That led to awkward and unfair conditions; Napheesa Collier, already an All-Star as a rookie in 2019, earned the bottom wage within the league in 2020 and 2021 regardless of being one among its greatest gamers. That’s a predicament Bueckers would relatively keep away from.
As one of many sport’s most luminous stars, Paige Bueckers has a number of choices earlier than her. (Michael Reaves / Getty Pictures)
If Bueckers elects to depart UConn after this season, which has been her public stance, the first software at her disposal is demanding a commerce from Dallas. Golden State looks like a perfect vacation spot by way of market measurement and organizational power, plus the Valkyries are motivated to get a star shortly, although Bueckers is greatest suited to supply a listing of suitors to encourage negotiations.
Participant empowerment is on the rise in skilled sports activities, however that hasn’t been the case for the draft itself in recent times. Within the WNBA, Kelsey Plum accepted her destiny in San Antonio in 2017. Aliyah Boston willingly went to Indiana, then a five-win staff displaced for 3 summers as a consequence of area renovations. Earlier than NIL, no different recourse for girls’s basketball gamers existed, as gamers akin to Satou Sabally (who was picked by the Wings) felt compelled to enter the draft to start out incomes a wage. Even Boston didn’t have the star energy to shake the system. Analysts who spoke with The Athletic mentioned they couldn’t recall WNBA prospects attempting to angle their option to a special vacation spot within the draft.
The NWSL eradicated drafts. In males’s sports activities, salaries are so profitable that there’s a willingness to sacrifice particular person autonomy, however the funds aren’t there on the ladies’s aspect. A five-figure wage isn’t sufficient to oblige a star to play in a metropolis that isn’t of her selecting, for a company that hasn’t had a successful tradition.
Commerce calls for are outdated hat for WNBA veterans, and stars often win. Throughout the final 10 years, Kahleah Copper, Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles efficiently negotiated their option to new groups. Fowles even sat out half a season whereas ready for the proper deal. Bueckers would hardly be noteworthy if she expressed a need to play for a special staff, even when the timing of her request can be distinctive.
“With these gamers with the ability to make cash on their very own and begin their manufacturers and begin their careers exterior of faculty and off the courtroom, it does open up totally different avenues,” Carter mentioned. “They simply have extra choices now.”
Ought to Bueckers play rooster with Dallas after being drafted and maintain out till she is traded, she will be able to money in on her company sponsorships with Gatorade, Nike and Bose, amongst others, even when she isn’t incomes a wage to play basketball. She additionally has an fairness stake in Unequalled, a brand new 3×3 ladies’s basketball league, that would show fruitful. These earnings would greater than make up for the $78,831 contract of the projected prime choose.
GO DEEPER
Paige Bueckers is used to excessive expectations. However coping with the stress took time to study
The thought of willingly not enjoying basketball is likely to be robust for Bueckers, who has suffered many accidents. But when something, the precariousness of her profession ought to encourage her to search out a perfect WNBA touchdown spot as quickly as doable.
There’s a lengthy runway between now and the 2025 draft, loads of time for Bueckers and her illustration to evaluate Dallas and gauge the marketplace for a commerce if the Wings don’t meet her requirements. How the Huskies play in 2024-25 might additionally inform Bueckers’ willingness to spend one other season in Storrs. Regardless, Bueckers holds her destiny in her arms greater than different potential No. 1 picks. If she desires to reject the trail laid out for her by 4 ping-pong balls, she has the ability to take action.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Picture of Paige Bueckers: Michael Miller / ISI Photographs / Getty Pictures)