Paige Bueckers entered the 2025 WNBA season with as much hype as any player after being the No. 1 overall pick by the Dallas Wings. She then lived up to the hype with one of the greatest rookie seasons in WNBA history, and she has been rewarded.
On Tuesday, Bueckers was named the Rookie of the Year in a surprise trophy presentation from league Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Bueckers was in Los Angeles and backstage at the “Jennifer Hudson Show,” where she was to appear as a guest. The show has a signature tunnel walk before guests go on the air in which crew members line a hallway, then the guest walks through it while the crew hypes them up. Bueckers did the customary walk, but at the end of it, Engelbert was waiting with the trophy.
Once Bueckers saw who it was and what she was holding, the former UConn star began to blush as she realized what was about to happen. Engelbert presented her the trophy, and the crew then began chanting “Rookie of the Year! Rookie of the Year!”
It was nearly a unanimous win for Bueckers, as she received 70 of the 72 first-place votes. Sonia Cintron, the No. 3 overall pick by the Washington Mystics, received the other first-place votes.
Bueckers averaged 19.2 points, 5.4 assists and 3.9 rebounds for Dallas, with both the points and assists averages topping all rookies. She shot 47.7 percent from the field and 33.1 percent from beyond the arc and also brought it defensively. Bueckers’ 1.6 steals per game ranked second among rookies, and her 18 total blocks on the year were fifth-most among first-year players.
Her numbers rank among the best for any rookie in WNBA history. Her scoring average is the seventh-best and is coincidentally the same as the average of last year’s Rookie of the Year, Caitlin Clark. Bueckers’ assists average is also seventh-best in WNBA history for a rookie.
Bueckers made the All-Star Game in her first season, and she set a record for the most fan votes for a rookie with over 805,000. She won three Rookie of the Month awards, but the highlight of her debut year came roughly 10 miles from where she was presented the Rookie of the Year award. In a road game versus the Los Angeles Sparks on Aug. 20, Bueckers dropped 44 points on 17 of 21 shooting from the field, while making all four of her three-point attempts and all six of her free throws.
The 44 points set a new WNBA record for most points by a rookie and was the 10th-most points by any player in the 29-year history of the league. She was also the first WNBA player ever to score at least 40 points on at least 80 percent shooting from the floor. She then scored 11 points in the next game to give her double-digit points in 30 straight games to start her career, which was the third-longest streak in league history.
Bueckers was drafted after a stellar career in Storrs, Conn., which concluded with her guiding the UConn Huskies to the 2025 national championship. She was a three-time First-Team All-American, a three-time Big East Player of the Year and was named the 2021 National Player of the Year.
By winning the Rookie of the Year award, Bueckers becomes the fourth straight No. 1 overall pick to receive the honor after Clark (2024), Aliyah Boston (2023) and Rhyne Howard (2022). Of the 28 ROY winners in league history, 16 have been drafted first. Bueckers also becomes the second member of the Dallas Wings to receive the honor, following Allisha Gray in 2017.
Cheryl Ford, daughter of Hall of Famer Karl Malone, also won the award in 2003 with the Detroit Shock, who would then relocate to Tulsa before relocating again and rebranding itself as the Dallas Wings in 2016.
This could be the first in a number of accolades that Bueckers receives for her rookie season, as the WNBA is just now entering its awards announcement period. By winning Rookie of the Year, Bueckers is a lock to also be named to the WNBA All-Rookie Team on Sept. 29. She also could find herself on one of the All-WNBA teams when those are made public on Oct. 7.
Bueckers will hope that her individual success can translate to more team success next year. The Wings finished 10-34, tied for the worst record in the league, a year after going 9-31, which was the second-worst record that year. However, the team was discernibly better when Bueckers was on the court, compared with the eight games she missed due to injury. The Wings were just 1-7 when Bueckers was sidelined but 9-27 in the 36 games that Bueckers played.
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