The Dallas Wings got off to a great start in Wednesday’s 91-80 loss at the Golden State Valkyries. An efficient first quarter saw them jump out to a nine-point lead, and it looked like Dallas was poised for a strong road performance against a great team. Paige Bueckers only had two points on one shot attempt, but she racked up five assists en route to a dominant offensive frame.
Things changed in the second quarter. The Valkyries got hot from three and ratcheted up their intensity on defense, and the Wings couldn’t find an answer. After pouring in 26 in the first quarter, Dallas managed just seven total points in the second. Bueckers took five shots in the period (five jumpers) and missed them all. Golden State turned a nine-point deficit into an 11-point lead and never looked back.
Paige Bueckers never imposed her will on the game, as we’ve seen her do so many times before. It started at the opening tip, when she was clearly in facilitation mode early. And that’s fine: it was working, and she was getting her teammates going. But when things turned, when the Valkyries flipped the script and took control, Bueckers could not step up and respond. Her preferred method of operation wasn’t working, and she didn’t have a counter. That isn’t to say that the loss was all her fault — far from it. This game was mostly lost on the defensive end, and a subpar game from your superstar player is certainly no cause for concern. This is the WNBA — those nights happen.
But this game felt like an inflection point to me, the latest (and most frustrating) result of a transcendent player whose minimal flaws are starting to show up in a meaningful way. The 2026 Wings are a very good team. Expectations are heightened, and in a league where wins are hard to come by, issues are going to be more magnified than ever before. Last year, Bueckers could do no wrong. She delivered a historically great rookie season and was the only positive element on a dreadful team. Sure, there were areas of improvement for her, but no one really cared. We were all just happy to watch Paige Bueckers hoop.
And we still are! By all accounts, Bueckers is in the middle of another excellent season. She’s scoring and facilitating well, her efficiency is sparkling, and she’s spearheading an elite offense. Bueckers will likely start the All-Star game and earn All-WNBA honors, as well as MVP votes. So, what’s there to complain about? Shouldn’t we just sit back and appreciate greatness?
Well, if you’re like me, you know that Bueckers is only scratching the surface of how great she can be. Truthfully, there are things I wanted to see her accomplish this year that she flat-out hasn’t done. She’s essentially the same player she was in 2025, only now she’s playing with a competent coach who’s designed an offense tailor-made to her comfort. And while this is a phenomenal basketball player, there is so much room for growth.
Apart from her mentality (more on this later), the biggest reason Bueckers sometimes fails to exert her will like most superstar scorers is her over-reliance on jump shots. Bueckers is one of the best shooters in the history of basketball, so I get it. When you’re so automatic from midrange, it makes sense to live there. It’s her security blanket, a go-to move that she knows defenses will give her because it’s so hard to stop.
In the past, I’ve begged Bueckers to turn some of those middies into threes. And she’s done that this year! From 2025 to 2026, she’s upped her 3-point attempt rate from 21.7% to 33.7%. She’s taking nearly two more 3-pointers per game than last year and hitting them at an elite 41% clip. This is by far the most encouraging thing about her season thus far.
But while Bueckers has made a concerted effort to take more threes, the same cannot be said for shots near the basket. So far in 2026, just 15% of Bueckers’ total field goal attempts in the halfcourt are coming at the rim (per Synergy Sports). Her overall rim rate is in the fourth percentile among all WNBA players. For a superstar guard, that is completely unacceptable. No matter how good a jump shooter you are, there is tremendous value being left on the table when you don’t put pressure on the rim.
And it’s not like Bueckers isn’t getting the chance to attack the basket by playing mainly off-ball. Per Second Spectrum tracking, Bueckers is sixth among all WNBA perimeter players in total touches with 1,039 (117.8 touches per 100 possessions). Despite all those opportunities with the ball, just 13.9% of those touches are occurring inside the paint (38th percentile among this group). If you don’t get into the paint, you can’t get to the hoop. And you certainly can’t get to another place that Bueckers has avoided like the plague this year: the free-throw line.
All the best players in basketball can draw fouls, go to the free-throw line, and manufacture easy points when their team needs them. A’ja Wilson has a .429 free-throw rate in 2026. Breanna Stewart is at .536. Fellow guards Olivia Miles and Caitlin Clark are at .368 and .377, respectively. Meanwhile, Paige Bueckers’ free-throw rate sits at a platry .235, down from .280 in her rookie season. That number is seventh on the TEAM among players with over 100 minutes, behind the likes of Alysha Clark, Odyessy Sims, Awak Kuier, and Aziaha James. Per Synergy, just 13.9% of Bueckers’ two-point field goal attempts have resulted in free throws (30th percentile).
Melissa Triebwasser of The IX Sports asked Bueckers about this issue the other day, and Paige showed self-awareness in her response.
“That’s something I’m working on, something I read in my game,” Bueckers admitted. But after her initially reflective response, Bueckers hedged with the declaration that drawing fouls is “not up to [her],” lamenting that she is at the mercy of referees to earn free throws.
To me, this is indicative of a larger issue with Bueckers’ mindset. As she acknowledged in this same interview, she lets the game come to her. She takes what the defense gives. She is always looking to make the right play. This is a wonderful mentality to have most of the time. It is winning basketball. However, there are time-and-score situations where that has to go out the window. Sometimes, you need to put your head down and make something shake. Bueckers seems to struggle with sensing that moment.
Bueckers lacks the explosive downhill ability of someone like Miles or Kelsey Plum and doesn’t have the strength of a Chelsea Gray. Bueckers can counteract those things with her handle and intelligence. Thus far in her career, she hasn’t done so. You can see how much she hates pounding the basketball when she’s dribbling. Going back to those touch numbers from Second Spectrum, Bueckers is in the 71st percentile for average dribbles taken per touch at 3.95. That may seem like a lot, but it’s 1-3 fewer dribbles than players like Veronica Burton, Carla Leite, Georgia Amoore, Natasha Cloud, and Jade Melbourne. Bueckers is better than all of those players, but she often picks up her dribble too early and refuses to probe toward the basket or use craft to get to the rim. She wants to move the ball the second a help defender even thinks about looking her way, even if she’s in an advantageous situation.
One of Bueckers’ biggest superpowers is her incredible off-ball utility, and I would never want to take this away from her. I love the way Wings head coach Jose Fernandez has weaponized this, especially in Bueckers’ partnership with Jessica Shepard. Bueckers and Azzi Fudd are making so much happen with their off-ball cutting, screening, and relocating. The Wings’ offense is terrific because of it!
But there is so much meat being left on the bone. Against great defenses with tall, athletic, switchable defenders, you need on-ball counters. You need your best player to dictate things. This is how it goes in the playoffs, too. Right now, Bueckers isn’t up to the task. We’ve seen it in every loss this season. Atlanta, Minnesota, and Golden State have the players to force Dallas & Paige out of their comfort zone.
So, how do we fix this? Well, it starts with Bueckers acknowledging these improvement areas and committing to doing everything she can to achieve greatness. I think this is the easy part. Bueckers is a smart, self-aware player with a tremendous work ethic. I have no doubts about her competitiveness or desire to be great. The challenge will be tweaking a playstyle that has supported her to wild success for years. Hell, it’s still working now! And once she decides to take those meaningful steps, she’ll need in-game reps that might make her a bit uncomfortable. She may have to mix in some more “empty the clip” nights. She may have to turn the ball over from time to time. All of this will be short-term growing pains for long-term fulfillment. It’s just like anything else in life.
We’re never going to get heliocentric Paige Bueckers, and I don’t think anyone wants that. As I said before, the special blend of on and off-ball prowess is what makes her so special. But I think Bueckers could benefit a lot from studying some of the great NBA helio-ball maestros of recent times, especially the ones who (like her) are not the most explosive downhill athletes. Take a look at how Luka Doncic gets defenders on his hip and keeps them in jail with a live dribble. Watch how James Harden manipulates defenses with dribble moves and grifts his way to the line. The whole world just saw how Jalen Brunson used footwork, patience, and determination to lead a title-winning offense. Even Steph Curry figured out how to leverage his shooting gravity and off-ball wizardry into effective drives.
All of those players are masterful pick-and-roll operators and isolation scorers. Thus far in 2026, Bueckers has just 64 total field goal attempts out of these play types, and just eight of those are at the rim (per Synergy). There is so much middle ground between heliocentric hoops and whatever the hell that is, and as a superstar guard, she needs to find it.
Part of this is on the coaching staff, too. As brilliant as Fernandez has been, his offensive philosophy and relentlessness in building his team around what Bueckers already does well are preventing her from taking these next steps. I don’t want him to change his entire system; clearly, it works very well. But I wish he or others on the staff would recognize these issues and get in Bueckers’ ear. Maybe the oft-repeated press conference refrain of “passing up a good shot for a great one” needs more nuance where Bueckers is concerned. Maybe that’s coming as we inch closer to the playoffs. Either way, with or without outside influence, Bueckers is going to have to address the elephant in the room at some point. She is too good for these holes in her game. How quickly she fills them will determine how soon the Wings can compete with the best of the best and get to where everyone wants to go.
