In 2025 WNBA Draft, Dallas Wings hold top pick, but Paige Bueckers holds all the cards

---

---

Instead, Manning let them know via his agent that he would not play for the Chargers. On draft day, about an hour after San Diego picked Manning, they traded him to the New York Giants for New York’s first pick (fourth overall), Philip Rivers, along with several other picks, including future star defensive lineman Shawne Merriman, who reached three Pro Bowls. Manning and the Giants won a pair of Super Bowls. Everybody won.

Why am I talking about the NFL here at The IX? Because virtually everyone around the WNBA is convinced the same thing is about to happen, 21 years later, with Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings. And if anything, Bueckers has more leverage than Manning ever did.

I asked eight WNBA talent evaluators what chance they put on Bueckers’ representatives attempting the same maneuver as Eli Manning. Estimates ranged from 90% to 200%.

The reasons for this vary, but there is some overlap here. In the decade before drafting Manning, the Chargers went 43-85, with some high-profile developmental misses, most notably Ryan Leaf. Similarly, the Wings have struggled to sustain success, while replacing their head coaches every two years since arriving from Tulsa.

The hire of Curt Miller as general manager offers a chance at stability with a proven winner, while Jasmine Thomas, just promoted by the Wings, has drawn raves from those who have worked with her. There’s every chance Bueckers and the Wings can find a chance to work together, though that effort from either team or representative front, naturally, has not yet happened.

But the Wings won’t have a runway to prove itself ahead of the 2025 draft, and many people around the league believe that the team’s recent track record, paired with the market size of Dallas, could lead Bueckers to pursue other options.

How she does so — or, more accurately, through her representation, which is how Manning approached it — could vary, with those shades of gray affecting both the Dallas reaction to such an attempt and ultimately, the ability for everyone to come out a winner in it. If Bueckers were to simply pick one destination, that greatly limits Dallas’ options for a return in trade. If she provides several alternatives — say, Los Angeles, Washington and Golden State — the Wings could instead look to engineer a trade with multiple bidders, driving up the potential return. (The more Bueckers accommodates more suitors, of course, the less talent whoever acquires her will have to build around her.)

But there are other mitigating factors separating Manning from Bueckers, and each of them work in Bueckers’ favor. Manning had exhausted his college eligibility. Thanks to a combination of injuries and Covid extra season, Bueckers doesn’t even have to declare for the 2025 WNBA Draft. She can simply return to UConn, and continue to cash those NIL checks, playing one more season in Storrs and declaring for the 2026 draft.

Another reminder of the cards she can play hit my inbox just this week with the announcement Bueckers signed an exclusive deal with Panini. Want to see a card she can play in this? Her own.

But she has plenty of options that involve turning pro without playing for the Wings, or even in the WNBA. She could turn pro, choose not to declare for the 2025 WNBA Draft and play overseas for a lucrative contract — estimates from several agents I spoke with ran well into the seven figures. Interestingly, Diamond DeShields actually did this in 2017, turning pro in June, playing in Turkey, before declaring for the 2018 draft and getting selected third by the Chicago Sky.

She could spend the summer attending sporting events, then join the second season of Unrivaled or Athletes Unlimited in early 2026. She could even do all this while declaring for the 2025 draft, and either through brinkmanship or a simple failure of the minds to meet, re-enter the 2026 draft.

Yes, that’s right: Dallas wouldn’t hold her rights in perpetuity. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, the Wings would only hold them until the following year’s draft, two league sources confirmed to me.

Bueckers will be making this decision in a very different moment for athletes, particular women. I referenced the CBA, but there’s a new CBA being negotiated, the players having opted out, with the general belief that the economics will changed dramatically. Essentially, this 2025 draft, with five-figure rookie scale contracts, has the chance to be the last possible moment any player would get paid at a 2020-CBA level. Purely from a salary perspective alone, there are many incentives for Bueckers not to go through the normal process.

It is also a moment when the National Women’s Soccer League just signed a new CBA that abolished the draft altogether, with players needing to sign off on any trades. Player autonomy is the trend, and that is reflected not only in the balance between players and owners in the NWSL, but in places like Unrivaled, where there aren’t any owners at all, the players themselves stakeholders.

So while Manning faced some blowback, it’s fair to wonder exactly how much of it Bueckers can expect for exercising her power as a woman in sports in 2025, especially when she has built up so much goodwill over doing so. Several people I spoke to around the league even suggested she had an obligation to maximize her circumstances, in the same way a free agent in men’s sports should take the highest contract offer, to improve the salaries for everyone else by setting the market.

As for Manning? Well, in 2013, he returned to play in San Diego. The Giants lost, and he got booed.

And then Eli Manning got on a plane and went home to New York, his preferred destination — and his Super Bowl trophies.

---

The IX Newsletter: Six different women’s sports in your inbox every week!

Subscribe now and join us, just $6 a month or $60 a year. It’s the women’s sports media network we all wished for, and now it’s here!

---

This week in women’s basketball

Hannah Hidalgo is as exciting as ever.

What a weekend at Drake for Jan Jensen!

Enjoy this Arizona broadcast duo!

DESTINY ADAMS.

---

Readers of The IX save 50% on subscriptions to The Next!

The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff, dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.

Subscribe to make sure this vital work of creating a pipeline of young, diverse media professionals to write, edit and photograph the great game continues and grows. Your subscription ensures our writers and editors creating 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage like what you’re reading right now get paid to do it!

---

Five at The IX: Alex Bazzell, Unrivaled president

---

Want women’s hockey content? Subscribe to The Ice Garden!

Here at The IX, we’re collaborating with The Ice Garden to bring you Hockey Friday. And if you want the women’s hockey goodness 24/7? Well, you should subscribe to The Ice Garden now!

---

Mondays: Soccer

By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer

Tuesdays: Tennis

By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer

Wednesdays: Basketball

By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The Next

Thursdays: Golf

By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX

Fridays: Hockey

By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden

Saturdays: Gymnastics

By: Lela Moore, @runlelarun, Freelance Writer