Diana Taurasi's Bold Paige Bueckers 'Best Player' Prediction Turns Heads

Few people can empathize with the pressure and expectations that Paige Bueckers is facing as a rookie with the Dallas Wings. However, one person who understands from experience the place that Bueckers is in is WNBA legend Diana Taurasi.

Not only did both Bueckers and Taurasi play for Geno Auriemma with the UConn Huskies in college, but both were taken as the No. 1 overall pick of their respective WNBA Drafts (Taurasi in 2004 and Bueckers in 2025).

There's clearly a lot of mutual respect between these two icons. And during her appearance on a May 23 episode of No Offseason: The Athletic Women's Basketball Show, Taurasi made a bold claim about Bueckers' future in the league.

"It's a different beast. There's different challenges as an individual, as a team," Taurasi said of Bueckers' transition from college to the WNBA. "When you get drafted number one, you're usually going to a team that's rebuilding, that's starting to try something new.

"There's a lot of challenges when you get to a team and a franchise that's rebuilding. You kind of have to change your outlook on wins and losses. You take the wins as far as getting better every single game. And as you can tell already, Paige from game one to game two, she's a different player. And from game two to game 10, she's gonna be a different player. And that's gonna go for their team as well."

Taurasi later added, "The one thing I know about Paige is she's so grounded, she's so patient, she's so prepared. And I think she has learned that in the past four or five years. And all those things that she learned at Connecticut, they're going to change the way you look at [Dallas].

"One day she's going to end up being the best player in the league, for sure," Taurasi concluded on Bueckers.