Paige Bueckers is going to have a very rough first season in WNBA
If I could go back in time a few years and say to myself that I would soon become a fan of the WNBA I would slap future me for suggesting such an absurd statement. However, that is exactly what has ended up happening and now I look forward to WNBA season much more than I do NBA season.
There are a wide variety of reasons why this is the case but mostly it boils down to the existence of the most electrifying woman basketball player in history, Caitlin Clark.
Even if you don't watch the sport you likely know her name and how in her first season of WNBA play, she alone completely changed the landscape as far as viewers of that league is concerned.
Here we are a year later, and we have a new "phenom" that is entering the WNBA and her name is Paige Bueckers, and she comes from UConn.
I haven't watched much of her highlights but I know that she is a similar style player to Caitlin in that she can nail shots from everywhere and is not a greedy player.
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Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. Part of the reason that she is so looked at is because of her skin color. That is just part of it even though people will claim otherwise. She has that tiny white girl appeal and is also very mild mannered just like Caitlin Clark was / is.
She also did very well in her college years, even though she was plagued with a bunch of injuries that hopefully wont come back to haunt her.
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These two have only ever met once in their college careers and it was pretty level. The comparison kind of stopped there though because Paige was sidelined with an ACL injury. But now Paige is about to start playing for Dallas in the WNBA, and it is expected that the two of them, who were both rather dominant players in college, are going to have a rivalry of sorts. This bodes well for the Dallas club owners but it also puts a TON of pressure on Bueckers herself.
you see, it is very rare that a rookie in any sport, even the WNBA, to come out and do as well as Caitlin Clark did. In fact, across all sports it has only happened a handful of times. There was some talk about CC getting MVP as well as rookie of the year, but that was never going to be allowed to happen because there are a ton of politics in these awards. Did she deserve it? Well she certainly deserves the MVP as far as getting anyone to actually watch the WNBA, that's for sure.
For Paige though, a lot is expected of her the moment that she hits the floor in Dallas. People already have rather unrealistic expectations that she is going to be able to bring her team to the forefront the same way that Caitlin did. They are going to expect her to draw huge crowds and to be able to adapt to professional basketball the same way that Caitlin did. They are going to expect her to rain down 3's on a regular basis and create scoring opportunities down low the way that Caitlin did. They are going to expect her to bring her team up to the forefront even though Dallas was not a good team prior to drafting her the way that Caitlin did.
The problem is, there has only ever been ONE Caitlin Clark in the history of women's professional basketball so what are the chances of another such phenom coming into the sport The very next year.
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She's the number 1 draft pick in 2025 and while her salary is a joke compared to the man version of the sport, she is actually being paid MORE than Caitlin is getting from Indiana Fever.
I hope she can handle the pressure because it would be really awesome to have some other fresh blood in the league to focus on as well and it would be even better if we could start to see all of Dallas' games selling out at home as well as on the road. This would be especially fantastic if both her and Caitlin do well right from the start and a new rivalry can begin because the rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese is boring since Angle isn't really on the same level as Caitlin and their "beef" is already stale.
We don't have long to go before the season starts and a lot of new fans like myself are really looking forward to what could happen!
She's actually a better player that Clark to be honest. She might not have the stats like Clark does, but she is more well rounded. She actually plays defense and she has a more consistent game in the paint from what I have seen. Clark seems to have figured it out, so I think Paige will be alright. Even Sheldon seems to have found her place. I'm actually more excited to see Fudd play at the next level. She's amazing.
it's fantastic that people are excited about the WNBA, I never thought I would be one of them! This next season will be fire as we have more than one player to focus on now. Perhaps the vitriol towards Clark from other teams' players can die down a bit now and the intentional fouls can stop happening.
Yeah, I definitely agree they were targeting her and I think a lot of that has already started to go away. She ended up putting up some monster stats in her rookie season from what I saw.
speaking of people that have a ton on their shoulders, CC is probably the top one. After Rookie of the Year she is likely expected to match and exceed the numbers that she had last season. They have a new coach at Indiana and kept most of their clutch players so it'll be exciting to see what they can do.
Yeah, they might be contenders for sure. Their old coach was kind of meh, so it's good they decided to go a different direction.
I struggle watching female sports and have given them a chance, but the standard is not even close and have given up on them entirely. Cricket, rugby and football so I have tried, but they have not got me on board as a fan.
This is the same opinion that a ton of people have. I would feel the same but in basketball I often find the women's game more fun to watch because there is far less showboating and trash talk and more focus on team play.