Paige Bueckers’ All-Star starter selection provides positivity, promise for the disappointing Dallas Wings

The starters for the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game have been announced, and Paige Bueckers made the cut. She will be representing the Dallas Wings in Indianapolis on July 19.

Bueckers is averaging 18.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game. She is leading all rookies in scoring, rebounding and steals. Bueckers is the only rookie selected as a starter this year.

She is now one of the 10 rookies in the history of the WNBA to be named an All-Star starter. The other players are Chamique Holdsclaw, Tamika Catchings, Sue Bird, Maya Moore, Brittney Griner, Elena Delle Donne, Shoni Schimmel, Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark.

The Wings shared the call that general manager Curt Miller had with Paige, where he told her she had been named an All-Star starter and we got a calm celebration from the former UConn star.

At the following practice, Bueckers was asked about the moment and how she felt when she found out she made the All-Star starting lineup as a rookie. She shared:

I was just in a state of gratitude. I wasn’t going to scream and jump up and down, but I was very grateful. So the reaction might not have depicted that. But really I think individual awards are really team accomplishments. So to be able to share that with the people here, and even the people at UConn this past year, just everybody along the way that’s been a part of my journey to help me get to this point, I’m just really grateful for it.

Bueckers has consistently made progress during her rookie campaign. Her first standout performance was a 21-point game against the Connecticut Sun in Dallas’ first win of the year. She followed that up with a career-high 35 points against the Mercury in mid-June.

With her establishing herself as a leader, scorer and pesky defender, Paige’s play warranted the All-Star nod.

With a 5-13 record, the wins haven’t come for the Wings. Instead, the positivity and promise come from the process. Paige has more than demonstrated that she is the future, and Dallas has its best years ahead of them as long as she is in a Wings uniform.