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Wings Bueckers Basketball
Dallas Wings’ Paige Bueckers, chosen No. 1 total within the WNBA basketball draft, sports activities a cowboy hat gifted to her throughout an introductory press convention Wednesday, April 23, 2025, in Dallas. (AP Photograph/Julio Cortez)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
DALLAS (AP) — Paige Bueckers has accomplished her greatest to dwell within the current throughout a brief interval wherein she went from profitable a nationwide championship with UConn earlier this month to being the No. 1 overall pick within the WNBA draft and now donning a Stetson cowboy hat on a podium in Dallas Metropolis Corridor.
“It’s been insane. It’s been nonstop on the go, I’m both doing one thing or packing,” Bueckers mentioned Wednesday. “That’s what it’s been like for the previous couple weeks. However I’ve tried to remain current as a lot as I may, benefit from the final couple of days at UConn soaking in these relationships and people experiences, clearly having fun with the draft.”
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The following step is coaching camp with the Dallas Wings, which begins Sunday.
“Very excited for the following chapter,” the versatile 23-year-old guard mentioned.
Bueckers and the opposite 4 gamers drafted by the Wings on April 14 had been launched in a packed foyer at Dallas Metropolis Corridor that included the mayor, town council and metropolis staff, some watching from perches on the second and third flooring.
“Properly, it was Christmas 9 days in the past (on the draft). Definitely, immediately appears like New 12 months’s Eve or New 12 months’s Day with the optimism and all of the momentum across the Dallas Wings,” new general manager Curt Miller mentioned.
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There was by no means a query for Miller or the Wings about who their high decide could be after they gained the WNBA draft lottery.
“The large image is that we knew what that meant … thrilling, thrilling second,” Miller mentioned. “Paige clearly comes off a nationwide championship, probably the most adorned collegiate gamers and probably the most environment friendly gamers in faculty basketball historical past.”
Together with proclamations from the mayor, there have been additionally the cowboy hats for every of the Wings draftees: Bueckers, twelfth total decide Aziaha James from North Carolina State, 14th decide Madison Scott from Mississippi, twenty seventh decide JJ Quinerly from West Virginia and thirty first decide Aaronette Vonleh from Baylor.
“All people’s talked about simply being part of a brand new household, being part of a brand new metropolis. Dallas is a good sports activities metropolis, you possibly can really feel the love and assist already,” Bueckers mentioned. “There’s lot of recent on this group, so be part of one thing and construct with one another, and simply create a brand new sisterhood.”
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The introductory information convention was held a few blocks from the historic downtown area being totally renovated to turn into the brand new residence of the Wings subsequent season.
However Bueckers’ residence video games in her first season with the Wings can be about 20 miles away at School Park Heart at UT-Arlington, the place they are going to play their tenth and last season because the franchise relocated from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Except for one home game on June 27. The Wings that night time will play Indiana and Caitlin Clark, final 12 months’s No. 1 total decide, on the residence of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.
It was a 12 months in the past Thursday that the Dallas City Council approved a 15-year agreement value $19 million to facilitate the crew’s pending transfer to its namesake metropolis. The council additionally accredited a $7.7 million renovation to the sector that was as soon as residence to the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Affiliation, who moved to San Antonio to turn into the Spurs in 1973, and joined the NBA when the ABA folded three years later.
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“We stood proper right here on this constructing, and we proudly introduced that the Dallas Wings would quickly be making downtown Dallas their everlasting residence,” Mayor Eric Johnson mentioned Wednesday. “And since then, the thrill has solely grown, the fan base has rallied and immediately we’re taking the following massive step ahead. Welcome, everybody, to the way forward for Dallas sports activities.”
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