'A special opportunity': Wings react after taking UConn star Paige Bueckers No. 1 in WNBA draft

Emily Adams, Hartford Courant on Apr 16, 2025

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Even before her name was officially announced as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA draft, Paige Bueckers was feeling the love from the Dallas Wings.

After she led the UConn women’s basketball team to its long-awaited 12th NCAA championship, Wings guard DiJonai Carrington commented under her celebratory Instagram post, “Congrats tea**ate!!” (meaning teammate, though she couldn’t say it yet) while forward NaLyssa Smith tagged Bueckers in a post on X, writing “It’s timeee…”. Wings star Arike Ogunbowale, who won an NCAA title at Notre Dame in 2018, also took to X the day after the national championship game.

“I woke up feeling like a traitor cause I was really clapping when a certain team scored???” Ogunbowale wrote, adding a shamrock emoji to assure her loyalty to the Fighting Irish. “Anyway, go wings lol. Can’t wait for the draft.”

And then there was general manager Curt Miller, who was fired on Sept. 24 as head coach of the Los Angeles Sparks before the Wings brought him on two weeks later in his first full-time GM role. Miller had hoped for the chance to coach Bueckers in L.A. after the team went 8-32 in 2024 to secure the top odds in the WNBA draft lottery, and his elated reaction when Dallas won the lottery on Nov. 17 went instantly viral when the team shared it on the morning of the draft.

“I’ve been in the league for over a decade and never had a No. 1 pick,” Miller said Monday night. “Today truly felt like Christmas morning. When we woke up this morning it was like, this is really happening.”

Despite the rumor mill and reports that Bueckers might pull an Eli Manning by trying to force a trade on draft night, Miller said there was never any serious discussion from the Wings’ side about moving off of No. 1. Once he had the chance to get the UConn star in his building, he was committed to taking it.

“We were never going to trade the pick. I think from the moment — as you saw, my reaction — of winning the draft lottery, that we knew we had a special opportunity,” Miller said. “Very early on, it was Paige and Paige only. … What we’ve seen No. 1 picks do to franchises around the league, it is something truly special for the trajectory of your team, the momentum that it brings. Paige will do it in her own way. Her efficiency, her unselfishness, her ability to take over when needed, I think you’re going to see her really impact this franchise.”

The Wings cleaned house during the 2024 offseason after going 9-31, so Bueckers will also be working under a first-year head coach. Dallas hired Chris Koclanes in December after he spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach at USC, but he also has WNBA experience: He was as an assistant under Miller with the Connecticut Sun from 2019-22, then followed the head coach to Los Angeles in 2023. Koclanes got a front-row seat to watch Bueckers beat the Trojans in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, and he also saw her drop 22 points against them in a 72-70 win over UConn on Dec. 21 — just two days before he was officially announced as the next coach of the Wings.

“I think what makes her special is she can fill the gap, and she can fill whatever gap. So we can put her on the ball, we can put her off the ball, and she’ll be just as good, just as efficient, just as effective, and most importantly, just as willing,” Koclanes said. “The efficiency is off the charts. All the numbers, all the accolades are just insane, and they speak for themselves, but I think it’s more the intangibles and the way she just handles everything with such gratitude and grace is extremely impressive.”

Bueckers joins a new-look roster in Dallas that will include four other draftees and seven total rookies entering training camp. But with Ogunbowale under contract through 2025, the Wings maintain their centerpiece who they hope will serve as a strong veteran complement to Bueckers’ skill as both a facilitator and scorer. Ogunbowale is a three-time All-WNBA selection and the two-time MVP of the All-Star Game, most recently in 2024 when she led Team WNBA to victory over Team USA. The star shooting guard put up career numbers last season, averaging 22 points, 4.6 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 2.1 steals per game, and she shot nearly 35% from 3-point range.

“She’s just so unselfish. 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,” Koclanes said. “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 I love just her mindset of of getting others involved, so I think they’ll mesh well together.”