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Dallas Wings draft Paige Bueckers with No. 1 pick in 2025 WNBA draft

Paige Bueckers (right) poses for a photo with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being selected with the first overall pick by the Dallas Wings during the 2025 WNBA Draft at The Shed on Monday, April 14, 2025, in New York City. (Tribune News Service)
By Ben Pickman The Athletic

Eight days after guiding UConn to its first national championship in nine years, the Dallas Wings selected Paige Bueckers with the No. 1 pick in Monday’s draft.

Bueckers enters the professional ranks at an important moment for both Dallas and the WNBA. The Wings are looking to return to the postseason after missing out on the playoffs last year, and the franchise is planning to move from Arlington into a larger arena in downtown Dallas ahead of the 2026 season.

After last year’s WNBA season saw record ratings, attendance and merchandise sales, the league is looking to build on its positive momentum this summer. Bueckers, and the rest of this year’s rookie class, are well-positioned to help the WNBA grow.“I’m coming in and wanting to give everything I have to that organization,” Bueckers said after being drafted.

Bueckers was one of the best players in college basketball from the moment she stepped onto the floor for the Huskies. She made history by becoming the first freshman woman to win the Naismith Player of the Year award, and she was named a first-team All-American three times. The redshirt senior left the Huskies having become the program’s all-time leading scorer in NCAA Tournament history, and the fastest player in program history to reach 2,000 career points. Bueckers is already a part of the Huskies of Honor program.

But it wasn’t until UConn topped South Carolina in the 2025 national championship that Bueckers won her first national title.The rest of the early first round went according to expectations: No. 2 pick by the Seattle Storm, Dominique Malonga (France); No. 3 pick by the Washington Mystics, Sonia Citron (Notre Dame); No. 4 pick by the Mystics, Kiki Iriafen (USC), No. 5 pick by the Golden State Valkyries, Juste Jocyte (Lithuania), No. 6 pick by the Mystics, Georgia Amoore (Kentucky), No. 7 pick by the Connecticut Sun, Aneesah Morrow (LSU), No. 8 pick by the Connecticut Sun, Saniyah Rivers (NC State), No. 9 pick by the Los Angeles Sparks, Sarah Ashlee Barker (Alabama) and No. 10 and 11 picks by the Chicago Sky, Ajša Sivka (Slovenia) and Hailey Van Lith (TCU).

From wire services