NEW YORK -- Dallas Wings general manager Curt Miller said he woke up Monday feeling like it was Christmas morning, and by the end of the day his franchise was awarded its long-awaited present.
The Wings selected UConn star and freshly minted NCAA champion Paige Bueckers No. 1 in the 2025 WNBA draft, fulfilling the vision the team had conjured since winning the draft lottery in November for the first time in franchise history.
"Very early on, it was Paige and Paige only," Miller said. "She's such a special player."
"The conversations [with the Wings] were brief, but just for them to know that I am coming in and wanting to give everything I have to that organization," Bueckers said. "Dallas is a sports city, so I'm super excited for the support, the new wave of being there, being in a new city, being with a new team and conquering those challenges as a group. We've got great pieces, a great ownership, great GMs, great coaches. The entire organization from up to down, I'm extremely excited for it."
Bueckers, a three-time first-team All-American from Hopkins, Minnesota, becomes the sixth player, and first since Breanna Stewart in 2016, to be the No. 1 pick after winning a national championship in the same year. Bueckers led the Huskies to their first NCAA title in nine years, and the program's 12th overall, on April 6 in her final college game.
Bueckers was supported at the draft, which was held at The Shed, by the entire UConn team and coaching staff, including Geno Auriemma. Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Muhl, Bueckers' former classmates who were drafted last season, also attended.
"They mean everything to me. They helped me get through highs and lows," Bueckers said, choking up when talking about her former teammates.
Bueckers is the sixth UConn player to be drafted No. 1, joining a distinguished group of WNBA superstars that includes Sue Bird (2002), Diana Taurasi (2004), Tina Charles (2010), Maya Moore (2011) and Stewart (2016).
"You don't ever want to assume anything in life. Nothing is guaranteed, so for this moment to be here and it to actually happen, it's nerve-racking," Bueckers said about being selected No. 1. "You just have a level of excitement, nervousness, bittersweet feeling knowing that my journey at UConn is over but excited for the next one to begin. To be able to share that moment with the people sitting at my table and also the people not sitting at my table, they played a huge role in it."
The selection marks a hopeful change of fortune for the Wings, who went 9-31 last season, missed the playoffs and reshaped their front office and coaching staff. Bueckers marks their second No. 1 pick, following Charli Collier in 2021.
"What we've seen No. 1 picks do to franchises around the league, it is something truly special, the trajectory of your team, the momentum that it brings," Miller said. "Paige will do it in her own way, and her efficiency, her unselfishness, her ability to take over when needed, I think you're going to see her really impact this franchise."
The Seattle Storm followed Dallas' selection by picking 19-year-old French star Dominique Malonga, who became the sixth player drafted in the top two who did not attend college in the United States. Malonga, a 6-foot-6 center, has been a pro since she was 15 and was part of the silver medal-winning French Olympic basketball team. Gaining comparisons to her French compatriot Victor Wembanyama, Malonga is considered by some talent evaluators to also have a generational ceiling as a pro.
She is the highest-drafted player from France in WNBA history.
"I am so proud to achieve that goal because it just shows that French basketball has evolved, as we've seen the past few years on the NBA side," Malonga said. "We see Wemby or Zaccharie Risacher that show that French basketball is great, and now with the women, so me, it just shows that it's not only men French players, it's also women. It's just French basketball in general. I'm so proud just to show that today French basketball is at a level that we have never seen."
Fresh off hiring a new coach (Sydney Johnson) and general manager (Jamila Wideman), the Washington Mystics became the second team in WNBA history to make three of the first six picks of a draft when they selected Notre Dame's Sonia Citron at No. 3, USC's Kiki Iriafen at No. 4 and Kentucky's Georgia Amoore at No. 6.
At No. 5, the expansion Golden State Valkyries made Justė Jocytė of Lithuania their first draft pick in franchise history. Jocytė is the second player drafted from Lithuania -- and first in the first round -- joining Jurgita Streimikyte in 2000.
Two other teams had a pair of first-round picks: At No. 7, the Connecticut Sun took LSU's Aneesah Morrow, who finished her college career with the second-most double-doubles in Division I history. And then at No. 8, the Sun selected NC State's Saniya Rivers, the Wolfpack's highest draft pick in program history. The Chicago Sky followed by drafting Slovenia's Ajša Sivka 10th and Hailey Van Lith 11th, the latter TCU's second first-round pick in program history.
Van Lith, who earlier this spring became the first men's or women's player in NCAA tournament history to lead three schools to the Elite Eight, will reunite with former LSU teammate Angel Reese, with whom she played in the 2023-24 season.
The Los Angeles Sparks took Sarah Ashlee Barker at No. 9, making her the third first-round selection in Alabama history.
Dallas closed out the first round drafting Aziaha James of NC State at No. 12. Rivers and James are NC State's first pair of first-round picks in a single draft.
The selections of Malonga, Jocytė and Sivka tied for the most international players drafted within the top 10 in WNBA history.
A notable name who went undrafted through the three rounds was Sedona Prince, who just finished her seventh and final season at TCU, where she helped the Horned Frogs reach the Elite Eight for the first time in school history and earned honorable mention AP All-American honors. The 6-foot-7 center came into the spotlight with a viral video during the NCAA tournament bubble in 2021, and was also a lead plaintiff in a landmark antitrust lawsuit that will help get money for college athletes.
Prince faced backlash from fans -- including a petition for her dismissal from TCU -- after accusations of sexual assault and intimate partner violence from four women were made public. She has denied the allegations and was never charged with a crime.
Prince was not among the 16 prospects invited to attend the draft. She could get invited by a WNBA team for a tryout or elect to play overseas.
The 2025 season was set to be a new chapter in Dallas even aside from the addition of Bueckers. The Wings, headlined by four-time All-Star Arike Ogunbowale, hired new coach Chris Koclanes and Miller this offseason. After stars Satou Sabally and Natasha Howard moved on to different teams, Miller brought in DiJonai Carrington, Tyasha Harris, NaLyssa Smith and Myisha Hines-Allen during free agency.
The franchise, which previously played in Detroit and Tulsa when it was known as the Shock, has made the postseason in five of its nine seasons since relocating to Dallas in 2016 but advanced past the first round only once, in 2023. It finished second to last in the standings last year, in front of only the Sparks. Now the Wings will look to bottle up the momentum of drafting Bueckers into supercharging their franchise on and off the court.
The organization had already announced a move in 2026 from Arlington to Dallas, where it will have a standalone practice facility and play in a larger and newly renovated arena.
"It's a new build. They've tried it a certain way, and it hasn't worked," Auriemma said. "They've made big changes, front office, coaching staff, everything. Their roster's in a little bit of flux, which is good. Sometimes, when you have a new organization, you can be part of the build. You can be part of the new and some of those players that are there that are used to playing a certain way, maybe you want to play a different way, and Paige might be the perfect person to help them do that. It's exciting, I know that, it's exciting for her and for the franchise."
Added Bueckers: "It's not a rebuild, it's just a build from where we are. Excited for the new arena, the new practice facility and conversations with the CEO, the GM. We're excited for the future, and we only think the best is ahead."
Bueckers enters the pros boasting the top career scoring average in UConn history (19.8 PPG) on remarkable efficiency (53% from the field, 42% from 3, 85% from the free throw line), while also shining as a facilitator. In 2021, she became the first freshman to win the Wooden Award, Naismith Trophy and AP National Player of the Year. She then overcame a pair of knee injuries, including an ACL tear that sidelined her for the 2022-23 season, to play the best basketball of her career over the past two seasons with the Huskies.
Though the 6-foot guard can play both on and off the ball, multiple WNBA talent evaluators told ESPN they see her as a point guard long-term. Either way, her pairing with Ogunbowale in the backcourt could soon emerge as one of the best guard duos in the league.
"I think she's just so unselfish," Koclanes said. "She can take over a game when she wants to and when she needs to, but she just has such great feel for getting others involved. And that's something that's really special. So you put that next to Arike and I feel together they'll be able to play off of each other and read who's going, who needs a touch, maybe I need to be more aggressive, maybe I need to defer in this moment, but love just her mindset of getting others involved, so I think they'll mesh well together."
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.