New York – Paige Bueckers is ready for his next chapter after a Torbellino Week That began with her by helping Uconn win her 12th National Championship and ended her becoming the number 1 Draft selection of the WNBA by the Dallas Wings.
“I am extremely excited to be there. I have only heard great things about the city,” Bueckers said about Dallas. “So excited to start that new chapter and be in a new city and explore that and give everything I have to the Wings organization. I know we are going to do great things, and it is a new beginning, and I think we are all ready to do something special.”
He Uconn Versatile Star He is the last prominent of the Huskies in No. 1, joining former Greats Sue Bird, Diana Tauurasi, Tina Charles, Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart.
Bueckers has spent a busy time since he helped Uconn win the title on April 6. He has divided his time between New York and Connecticut doing interview programs in the morning and nocturnal. On Sunday, he participated in the parade of the Huskies championship.
“I’m glad New York and Stords are quite close to each other because there has been a lot of round trip,” Bueckers said. “Part of me wants to stay at school, celebrate with the team, be with them, enjoy the last moments of being in Storrs, and the other part of me has to prepare for the next chapter.”
Bueckers could enjoy the moment of Monday night with his teammates from UCONN and coach Geno Auriemma who were at the audience at the Draft, which was held in the New York shed. Bueckers choked when he talked about his former teammates of the Huskies.
“They mean everything to me. They helped me overcome ups and downs,” Bueckers said.
Seattle followed the Dallas National Team when taking the 19 -year -old French star Dominique Malonga with the number 2. Malonyga 6 feet and 6 inches was part of the French Olympic basketball team winner of the silver medal. She is the first French player to be recruited so high since 1997, when Isabelle Fijalkowski was second.
“I was very proud to achieve that goal,” Malonga said. “He showed that French basketball has evolved as we have seen in recent years on the side of the NBA. We see Wemby (Victor Wembanyama) and Zaccharie (Risacher) show that French basketball is great.”
The MiStics of Washington, with a new coach and general manager, took Sonia Citron de Notre Dame with the third selection, and Kiki Iriafen of Southern Cal with No. 4. also took Georgia Amore Amoore from Kentucky Guard with the sixth selection. Amoore was dressed in the orange carpet of the WNBA by the NBA star Russell Westbrook, who has a clothing brand called Honor The Gift. Amore said that Westbrook designed his outfit and it was incredible to work with which they met for the first time in a zoom session last November.
“It’s phenomenal. He did such a good job,” Amore said on Westbrook. “It was not just putting his name in something. He spent hours at the hotel fitting it … It has been very active in the process. Having such contact now, someone in whom I can support it or in which it is incredible. It is the beginning. You will see that this happens more frequently. It is a blessing to be the first to do this.”
The Golden State Valkyries expansion made Jocyte Jocyte de Lithuania with the first election of the Draft in the history of the franchise.
Connecticut had consecutive selections and took the Aneesah Morow of LSU Seventh and Saniya Rivers of NC State Eighth.
Los Angeles took Sarah Alabama Ninth Sarahr. Chicago recruited Ajsa Sivka from Slovenia 10, and then Hailey Van Lith of TCU below.
Dallas closed the first Round of Drafting Aziah James of the state of North Carolina.
Six teams had no selections in the first round when New York, Indiana, Minnesota, Phoenix and Atlanta exchanged their elections. Las Vegas lost his choice after an investigation of the League in 2023 that found that the franchise violated the rules of the League with respect to the benefits of inadmissible players and policies in the workplace.
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