Will Paige Bueckers use her unprecedented leverage? She could force a trade or return to UConn

Within the past year, Paige Bueckers has expanded the scope of what it means to be a college athlete. She played in a Final Four but also became an equity partner in Unrivaled, designed her own player-edition sneaker for Nike and appeared courtside throughout the country at various sporting events.

In the new name, image and likeness age of college athletics, Bueckers has exerted unprecedented agency in her career and in building a brand for herself. What the budding superstar still can’t control is what comes next. Last month, the WNBA Draft lottery all but ensured that Bueckers’ next basketball stop will be with the Dallas Wings after they won the No. 1 pick.

For better or worse, that is the nature of the draft. Players have limited influence on their destination. They can choose to meet with or work out with certain teams and potentially withhold their medical records, but ultimately, teams hold the bulk of the power.

Bueckers, however, is in a rare situation where she wields more leverage thanks to her marketability, NIL portfolio and college eligibility. (She can return for a sixth season at UConn because of COVID-19 eligibility rules.) If she decides against playing for the Wings — and the buzz around the league is that Dallas was not her preferred destination — she could exert whatever levers she can to get where she wants as soon as possible.

Although Bueckers has indicated that she is treating this season as her senior year, she can return to UConn if she doesn’t want to enter the WNBA in 2025. Whether that’s because she is chasing a national championship, prefers a different draft destination or wants to delay her pro career until the institution of a new WNBA collective bargaining agreement, there are incentives to play one more season with the Huskies. Even if Bueckers elects to go pro, she could simply demand a trade.

“There’s just a lot of noise — way more noise in terms of rumors, in terms of all those things around women’s basketball, now more than ever,” said ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, who played at Tennessee until her career ended in 2015. “I don’t know if the rumors are true, but this is the first time I’ve heard it to this degree.”

Though Bueckers likely would be a star at any WNBA franchise, Dallas doesn’t provide the most opportunities for a player with a massive built-in fan base and marketing allure. The Wings have been notoriously unstable since moving to Dallas in 2016. They have cycled through coaches every two seasons and are searching for another. In 2018, a postgame altercation between head coach Fred Williams and CEO Greg Bibb led to Williams losing his job. Stars haven’t exactly flocked to the Wings in free agency, and some of their highest-profile players have publicly bashed the organization; Skylar Diggins-Smith called out the lack of support she felt she received during her pregnancy in 2018-19. A constant drain of talent has gone in the other direction. Diggins-Smith and Liz Cambage asked out via trades, as did Allisha Gray and Marina Mabrey in the 2023 offseason.

In fairness to Dallas, the other lottery options also had their flaws. Teams are at the bottom of the league for a reason. Even if Bueckers would rather have gone to Los Angeles or Washington, the Sparks don’t have a practice facility and are in a four-year playoff drought, and the Mystics don’t have a head coach or general manager and play in a 4,200-seat arena.

Given the state of the lottery teams, Bueckers could return to college by foregoing her draft eligibility at the end of the NCAA season and putting off the WNBA until 2026. That unfortunately still leaves her at the mercy of the lottery, but perhaps the threat of playing another season for UConn would motivate the Wings to take a trade demand seriously.

Furthermore, it might behoove her financially to postpone the start of her WNBA career. By entering this season’s draft, she would lock herself into a four-year rookie-scale contract that averages $87,000 annually. However, the WNBA will enact a new collective bargaining agreement before the 2026 season, one that figures to increase player compensation.

The last time the league instituted a new CBA, second- and third-year players were stuck in their rookie contracts from the previous agreement. That led to awkward and unfair situations; Napheesa Collier, already an All-Star as a rookie in 2019, earned the lowest salary in the league in 2020 and 2021 despite being one of its best players. That’s a predicament Bueckers would rather avoid.

As one of the sport’s most luminous stars, Paige Bueckers has several options before her. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

If Bueckers elects to leave UConn after this season, which has been her public stance, the primary tool at her disposal is demanding a trade from Dallas. Golden State seems like an ideal destination in terms of market size and organizational strength, plus the Valkyries are motivated to get a star quickly, though Bueckers is best suited to provide a list of suitors to encourage negotiations.

Player empowerment is on the rise in professional sports, but that hasn’t been the case for the draft itself in recent years. In the WNBA, Kelsey Plum accepted her fate in San Antonio in 2017. Aliyah Boston willingly went to Indiana, then a five-win team displaced for three summers due to arena renovations. Before NIL, no other recourse for women’s basketball players existed, as players such as Satou Sabally (who was picked by the Wings) felt compelled to enter the draft to start earning a salary. Even Boston didn’t have the star power to shake the system. Analysts who spoke with The Athletic said they couldn’t recall WNBA prospects trying to angle their way to a different destination in the draft.

The NWSL eliminated drafts. In men’s sports, salaries are so lucrative that there’s a willingness to sacrifice individual autonomy, but the finances aren’t there on the women’s side. A five-figure salary isn’t enough to oblige a star to play in a city that isn’t of her choosing, for an organization that hasn’t had a winning culture.

Trade demands are old hat for WNBA veterans, and stars usually win. Within the last 10 years, Kahleah Copper, Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles successfully negotiated their way to new teams. Fowles even sat out half a season while waiting for the right deal. Bueckers would hardly be noteworthy if she expressed a desire to play for a different team, even if the timing of her request would be unique.

“With these players being able to make money on their own and start their brands and start their careers outside of school and off the court, it does open up different avenues,” Carter said. “They just have more options now.”

Should Bueckers play chicken with Dallas after being drafted and hold out until she is traded, she can cash in on her corporate sponsorships with Gatorade, Nike and Bose, among others, even if she isn’t earning a salary to play basketball. She also has an equity stake in Unrivaled, a new 3×3 women’s basketball league, that could prove fruitful. Those earnings would more than make up for the $78,831 contract of the projected top pick.

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The idea of willingly not playing basketball might be tough for Bueckers, who has suffered many injuries. But if anything, the precariousness of her career should motivate her to find an ideal WNBA landing spot as soon as possible.

There is a long runway between now and the 2025 draft, plenty of time for Bueckers and her representation to assess Dallas and gauge the market for a trade if the Wings don’t meet her standards. How the Huskies play in 2024-25 could also inform Bueckers’ willingness to spend another season in Storrs. Regardless, Bueckers holds her fate in her hands more than other prospective No. 1 picks. If she wants to reject the path laid out for her by four ping-pong balls, she has the power to do so.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo of Paige Bueckers: Michael Miller / ISI Photos / Getty Images)