The top of ESPN’s 2020 women’s basketball recruiting rankings featured two 5’11″ point guards ranked first and fourth, separated by just two players. In a general WNBA conversation about Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark, the two players are likely to be right next to each other, separated by little more than words.
Such is the common ground between Clark, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, and Bueckers, the No. 1 pick in 2025. Both led college programs to great success, both racked up collegiate awards, and both figure to be star guards for their WNBA franchises for years to come.
For Bueckers, however, those comparisons have weighed heavy in the past.
Paige Bueckers Offers Insight Into Caitlin Clark Comparisons
A famous name even before arriving on campus at the University of Connecticut, Bueckers fought through multiple knee injuries before claiming a national title for the vaunted Huskies in 2025. It was a nice bounce-back for the redshirt senior after falling in the Final Four multiple times, including a dramatic loss to Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in 2024, cementing Bueckers’ place in the pantheon of UConn basketball legends.
While Clark ultimately fell short of a national championship, she lit up the WNBA as the almost-unanimous Rookie of the Year in 2024. With Bueckers joining Clark in the pros, the direct comparisons between the two are back, possibly for everyone but the pair themselves.
“That’s what the media cares about. That’s what everybody who watches basketball cares about,” Bueckers told Time’s senior correspondent Sean Gregory.
“I used to be bothered by it. But I’ve done so much work on myself and my approach. The ability to not run a race in comparison, to run my own race and worry about that. Caitlin’s a phenomenal player. We’re also completely different players,” Bueckers said.
Paige Bueckers is the Honda Sport Award winner for basketball! pic.twitter.com/8xlqIx8wMC
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB)
Bueckers averaged 19.9 points and 4.6 assists per game as a fifth-year on a UConn team replete with talent.
Clark, playing in more of a heliocentric offense at Iowa, averaged 31.6 points and 8.9 assists per game in her fourth year. Clark is known, among other things, for her long-range shooting, while Bueckers’ efficiency (she shot 53.4% from the field as a super-senior, compared to Clark’s 45.5%) is a hallmark of her game.
Comparison of the two stars “is good for the game,” Bueckers said in the Time profile.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think either of us really cares about it, because we’re just trying to be the best versions of ourselves.”
WNBA Adjustment Key to No. 1 Pick Success
Clark averaged 19.2 points and 8.4 assists per game in her first year in the WNBA, ramping up her adjustment to the league as her Indiana Fever started the season 3-10 before finishing on a 17-10 run.
Bueckers’ adjustment to the league and her new Dallas Wings teammates after a long collegiate season will be under scrutiny early, just like Clark’s was.
“Paige is going to have to make the adjustment,” Curt Miller, the Wings’ executive vice president and general manager, told Gregory.
“The speed of the game, the rules of the game, the physicality, are all different. The veterans aren’t going to take it easy on the rookie. Paige is going to feel her rookie moment at some point. She will have to navigate the comparisons to the adjustment that Caitlin had. We’re all mindful and aware, but we’re going to be very supportive that this is Paige’s journey, and no one else’s journey.”
