Last year, Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark went from No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft to a top-five finish in MVP voting and a spot on the All-WNBA first team. Fresh off leading UConn to its first national championship since 2016, can Paige Bueckers make a similar impact as the presumptive No. 1 pick in Monday's draft?
Clark did experience some of what fellow No. 1 pick Diana Taurasi termed "reality," particularly during a brutal start to the schedule. With the Fever schedule front-loaded against some of the WNBA's top teams, including three matchups each with the Connecticut Sun and New York Liberty in the first 13 games, Clark shot 37% from the field and had nearly as many turnovers as assists while Indiana started 3-10.
By the time Clark returned from the WNBA's Olympic break, however, she was one of the league's most valuable players down the stretch. Over that span, Clark averaged 23.1 PPG and 8.9 APG as the Fever reached the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
Let's break down Bueckers' performance at UConn alongside those of Clark at Iowa and other college stars to get a better idea of what the Dallas Wings can expect if they indeed make her the No. 1 pick Monday.
Selective, efficient scorer
Compared to Clark, a natural scorer, Bueckers is a bit more reserved in that regard. She peaked at 21.9 PPG as a junior before dropping to 19.9 as a senior with the arrival of freshman Sarah Strong and the return of Azzi Fudd to the lineup. Bueckers' highest usage rate at UConn was 29%; Clark was at 36.5% or higher all four years of her college career.
When the Huskies needed it, however, Bueckers showed the ability to ramp up her scoring -- particularly during the 2025 NCAA tournament. Having topped 32 points just once in her career (against Arkansas early in her sophomore season), Bueckers surpassed that mark back-to-back in a second-round win over South Dakota State that was also her final game in Storrs and then in UConn's Sweet 16 win over Oklahoma.
The latter game showcased how Bueckers can score from all three levels. She shot 6-of-12 on 2-point jumpers, mostly pull-ups with the Sooners keeping their post players back in drop coverage against the pick-and-roll, and hit six 3-pointers -- matching her career high -- in eight attempts.
Although Bueckers couldn't possibly always maintain the efficiency of that game -- when she needed just 27 shot attempts and three foul shots to score 40 points -- doing more with less was a consistent theme throughout her career. Bueckers posted a .628 true shooting percentage (TS%), which measures the shooting percentage necessary on exclusively 2-point attempts to match the total points scored, including 3s and free throws, and was never below .600.
Among guards drafted with the top pick in the past two decades, only Kelsey Plum's senior season at Washington (.657 TS%) has been more efficient than Bueckers' best seasons. Before that, it's back to UConn's 2001-02 title team, when Taurasi and Sue Bird were more efficient than Bueckers as part of a star-studded starting five that included Naismith Hall of Famer Swin Cash, All-Star Asjha Jones and longtime WNBA starter Tamika Williams-Jeter.
Playing on such a stacked team, Bird leaned a little more pass-first than Bueckers, averaging 14.4 PPG and 5.9 APG while winning national player of the year honors as a senior with a 21% usage rate. Still, she might be the best historical comp for Bueckers as a scorer.
Bird never averaged more than 14.7 PPG in the WNBA, but she similarly took over games with her scoring when necessary -- most notably with 14 points in the fourth quarter of the Seattle Storm's Game 5 win over Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury en route to the 2018 WNBA championship.
"It is almost guaranteed that Paige Bueckers will be the No. 1 overall pick."@Andraya_Carter and @chiney break down why Paige is expected to be the first off the board in the WNBA draft 📈 pic.twitter.com/FLN53ytfRy
— espnW (@espnW) April 8, 2025
Dangerous pick-and-roll operator
It's possible Bueckers has more offensive potential as a WNBA player than she showed at UConn. After all, Bueckers wasn't used as frequently as a pick-and-roll ball handler as Clark. Per Synergy Sports tracking, Bueckers averaged just 6.4 pick-and-rolls per game as a senior that led directly to either a shot, trip to the free throw line or turnover by either her or from her initial pass.
Contrast that to Clark, who ran 9.3 such pick-and-rolls per game as a senior at Iowa, and then was put in those situations even more frequently in the WNBA. According to Second Spectrum camera tracking, which includes all pick-and-rolls regardless of the outcome, Clark's 30.4 per game last season led the WNBA.
Because we don't yet know exactly how first-time head coach Chris Koclanes will run the Dallas offense, we can look to the track record of Wings executive vice president and GM Curt Miller as a guide. Before joining the USC coaching staff in 2023, Koclanes spent five seasons as an assistant coach under Miller with the Connecticut Sun and Los Angeles Sparks. As the Sparks' head coach last season, Miller called for the second-most on-ball screens per game in the WNBA, according to Second Spectrum.
When UConn coach Geno Auriemma did put Bueckers in pick-and-roll situations this season, the results were extraordinary. The Huskies averaged 1.2 points per play, best of any ball handler with at least 100 qualifying pick-and-rolls, and shot an effective 62% from the field (counting 3-pointers as 1.5 field goals to reflect their added value). That's the highest average for any pick-and-roll ball handler on that level of volume since Oregon's Maite Cazorla in 2018-19.
Because Bueckers is a serious scoring threat, WNBA teams will often be forced to commit two defenders to her in a pick-and-roll, creating opportunities for Bueckers to find open teammates as a distributor. That's one of the big evolutions we saw from Clark during her rookie season. She went from 6.0 APG over the opening 13-game stretch to 9.7 the remainder of the schedule. Only Courtney Vandersloot, with 10.0 per game in 2020, has ever averaged more.
Versatile defender
When I compared Bueckers to Clark entering the 2024 Final Four, defense was the point in her favor. On an injury-plagued UConn team that typically started just one player (2024 first-round pick Aaliyah Edwards) 6 feet or taller, 5-11 Bueckers stepped forward as an improbable paint defender, leading the team in blocks per game.
With Strong's arrival and 6-4 freshman Jana El Alfy healthy, Bueckers returned to a more traditional defensive role on the perimeter. Nonetheless, Bueckers' combination of steals and blocks was impressive. She posted a career-high 3.5 steals per 100 opponent plays and blocked 3% of opponent 2-point attempts.
The list of top-five picks in my database who have reached both of those thresholds is littered with stars: Cash, Jones, Taurasi, Alana Beard, Angel McCoughtry, Maya Moore, Candace Parker, Devereaux Peters and Gabby Williams. (Incidentally, LSU forward Aneesah Morrow will also qualify if she's taken in this year's top five.)
Given Bueckers' small stature and what will likely be a heavy offensive load, I doubt she will be a defensive standout like some of the players in that group. Still, it's another indication of how Bueckers' ability to read plays and size for a point guard make her valuable. Playing in what could be an undersized perimeter trio with 5-8 Arike Ogunbowale and 5-11 stopper DiJonai Carrington with the Wings, Bueckers would be capable of sliding down to guard some small forwards when Carrington is serving as an on-ball defender.
Expectations as a rookie
Bird and Clark share the distinction of being the lone WNBA rookies directly out of college ever to average 10 PPG and 5 APG in their first season, a group Bueckers should aspire to join. Just 11 players, including Ogunbowale, reached those marks last season. Add in Bueckers' efficiency and defensive contributions and doing so would immediately put her in the upper half of WNBA point guards.
Like Clark, Bueckers could reasonably get her team back to the playoffs as a rookie. Dallas is two seasons removed from going 22-18 in 2023, and while the Wings have lost two key members of that team in forwards Natasha Howard and Satou Sabally, they've added Carrington and forwards Myisha Hines-Allen and NaLyssa Smith.
Bueckers herself might prove the biggest upgrade, given how little production Dallas got from point guards Jacy Sheldon and Sevgi Uzun, both now departed. They combined for 9.8 PPG and 5.5 APG, production Bueckers alone could plausibly match while dramatically improving upon their 28% 3-point shooting.
It's not realistic for Bueckers to put up the kind of monster per-game stats Clark did as a rookie, when she finished in the top 10 in WNBA scoring and led the league in assists. Bueckers might never reach those heights, and Bird's Naismith Hall of Fame career shows it's possible to be one of the league's best players anyway. There's precedent for what we can expect, but Bueckers will carve her own path as a pro.