5 days Ago
The WNBA held its draft lottery on Sunday, and it was the Dallas Wings who came away with the top prize--and potentially the league's next superstar. That would be UConn's Paige Bueckers, the 6-foot guard from Minnesota who is poised to be the nation's top collegiate player this year. After a 2023 season in which the Wings scored their first winning record since the franchise moved to Dallas eight years ago, last year was a disaster.
The team dealt with injuries to Satou Sabally and Odyssey Sims, finishing 9-31. The mainstay is sixth-year guard Arika Ogunbowale, who led the team in scoring at 22.2 points last year, playing in 38 games.
Ogunbowale has been an All-Star four years in a row and, presumably, will form a high-scoring backcourt alongside Bueckers, should the upcoming college season pan out as expected. Ogunbowale celebrated the Wings' luck on Sunday, posting on Twitter/X, "I just fell to my knees. THANK YOU LORD!" I just fell to my knees.
THANK YOU LORD! ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ The Wings fired coach Latricia Trammell after last season. The team has yet to make a new hire, but the job certainly gained some appeal after Sunday's result. Bueckers has shown star potential from her arrival in Storrs, when she led the Big East in assists (5.
8) and 3-point shooting percentage (46.4%) as a freshman in 2020-21. But health has been an issue.
Bueckers had ankle surgery as a freshman, needed knee surgery as a sophomore and tore her ACL in 2022, causing her to miss the entire 2022-23 season. David Butler II-Imagn Images Healthy last year, she averaged 21.9 points, 3.
8 assists and 5.2 rebounds in 39 games and led the Huskies to the Final Four. She has averaged 21.
3 points, 4.0 assists and 3.7 rebounds in three games thus far in 2024-25.
The Los Angeles Sparks will pick No. 2 in the WNBA draft, followed by the Chicago Sky third and the Washington Mystics fourth. Those were the only four teams to not make the playoffs, and were the only teams involved in the lottery.
The expansion Golden State Valkyries will pick fifth. Related: Paige Bueckers Turns Heads With Dominant UConn Debut.
