How Paige Bueckers is adjusting to life in the WNBA

While Bueckers is off to a good start on the court, she's still getting used to everything else.

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Daniel Connolly
May 29, 2025

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How Paige Bueckers is adjusting to life in the WNBA

The last couple of months have featured one life-changing moment after another for Paige Bueckers. She won a national championship in her final game at UConn, got drafted first overall and began her WNBA career.

Now, she’s considering adding one more to the list: Getting a dog.

For the first time in her life, Bueckers is living by herself — and she’s not sure she wants to keep it that way.

“I've lived alone for a month but it's definitely different,” she admitted. “It definitely already made me second-guess whether to get a dog or not because I get so lonely sometimes. But I like it. I haven't been too lonely yet.”

There’s plenty for Bueckers to get used to as she begins her professional journey.

On the court, the transition to the WNBA has been smooth. She’s averaged 14.6 points, 6.4 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 1.8 assists — becoming the first player in league history with 60 points and 30 assists through five games — though her trademark efficiency has suffered. Bueckers has hit just 41.7 percent from the field and 30.8 percent from three to go along with an uncharacteristic 79.2 percent mark from the line.

Still, it’s incredibly early and she’s coming off an 8-10 shooting performance in a win over the Connecticut Sun. Bueckers has also limited turnovers, keeping the total below three in every contest while owning a 2.91 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Given that initial success, the biggest adjustments for Bueckers have come off the court.

In particular, the frequency of games and the amount of travel have been eye-opening for her. In her final college season, UConn played 40 games across 151 days, averaging out to one contest every 3.8 days. In the W, the Wings are scheduled for 44 games in just 119 games, or one every 2.7 days.

The travel is tougher, too. The Huskies’ longest road trip during the regular season was roughly 1,200 miles. The average distance of all 12 WNBA teams from Dallas is roughly 1,100 miles. Those long hours in transit combined with the shorter turnovers have been arguably her biggest welcome-to-the-league moment so far.

“[The biggest surprises have been] the turnarounds and the travel and how the next day you have a game, or the next day you're scouting for a game,” Bueckers said. “You know the schedule and how rough it is and how much you're on the go, or playing, or recovering, it's a lot… That's been a little surprising to actually be in it and see the WNBA schedule firsthand.”

In terms of basketball, she’s still figuring out how to pace herself. Since the college season leads right into the WNBA, she can’t go full-tilt all the time.

“Finding the balance between resting and recovering and also preparing, especially coming off an eight month-long season,” Bueckers said. “You know how careful you have to be in terms of overloading yourself, coming off of that long [college] season and then this long stretch of the [WNBA] season where everything's come fast as well. You want to adjust, you want to work and you want to improve on things. So finding the balance of taking care of your body while also putting in the work [has been hard].”

Though Bueckers admittedly isn’t one to sit still and joked that she doesn’t “find myself to be containable,” the Wings assigned Jasmine Thomas, longtime WNBA point guard and now the team’s director of player programs and development coach, as her “handler.”

In that vein, Bueckers has made an effort to find hobbies away from basketball to help her rest and relax.

“I've really invested myself in a lot of TV shows, so going home and resting and watching some TV shows I think is helpful,” she said before adding that she’s currently on the 21st season of Grey’s Anatomy.

When she has some free time while the team is home, Bueckers has tried to immerse herself in her new community. She attended a Dallas Stars playoff game and hopes to make it Mavericks, Cowboys and even some soccer games. That extends beyond sports, too. Bueckers wants to explore anything and everything — even the mall.

“It's fun, I’m just trying to embrace myself in the new city. Everywhere I go, I try to get with the community, be one in its own, and really just find myself as one of them,” she said. “I just want to be in the city, embrace that city.”

Bueckers will figure it all out in time. Her WNBA career is still in the infancy stage — she’s not even through her first full month. Bueckers knows she just has to remain patient and not get too far ahead of herself.

“This year is all about growth, maturing, handling adversity, handling the good, handling the bad, and just going with the flow, owning the flow, and taking every step by itself,” she said.

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