On the night of Wed. Aug, 20 2025, Paige Bueckers put on a show in downtown Los Angeles. Her Dallas Wings were in town for the first time this WNBA season to take on their fellow Western Conference opponent in the Los Angeles Sparks, who are competing for a playoff spot. Having just played five days earlier at the College Park Center in Arlington, Tex, the Sparks barely escaped with a win over the Wings, who attempted a comeback and Bueckers had a chance to make the game-winning shot. Alas, she missed as the Sparks won 97-96. Now, with her team in a free fall they cannot seem to stop, Bueckers is making her definitive case for the Rookie of the Year award in the WNBA this year and looking to leave worthy candidates Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen in the dust. A historic performance in front of a packed crowd at Crypto.com Arena helped her case, big time.

The Wings got off to a fast start on their Wednesday night game against the Sparks, with an early 9-0 lead. Bueckers scored six of those first nine points and she got another basket to make it eight out of 11 early Dallas points scored by her. The Sparks fought back from their slow start to gain the lead at the end of the first quarter, but it was a slim one of 18-16. By the time Paige re-entered the game in the second quarter, the Sparks were up by nearly double-digits and number five in white had to lead her team back into this game. Bueckers had eight more points in the second quarter to have 16 at the half, but her team was trailing by seven points at the break. The only other Wings players who had a good offensive first half were Maddy Siegrist and JJ Quinnerly. This game had to be won on the back of the best player on the team in Bueckers, who provided a legendary second half that had all the young girls watching in the arena go wild.

Strangely enough, to start the second half, it was Paige’s teammates who were picking up the slack as they scored their team’s first eight points of the half to keep up with the Sparks, who also countered with eight points of their own. Bueckers then scored the next seven points for the Wings as they clawed closer to Los Angeles on the scoreboard. Dallas finally retook the lead after a three-point shot made by Siegrist and a three-point play on a layup/free throw by Bueckers, who now had 26 points for the game in the third quarter. She wasn’t done yet as a layup and three-pointer made it 31 points for Paige through three full quarters. The Wings had a 66-59 lead entering the fourth quarter and everyone was cheering for the young rookie star from Minnesota making her long-awaited SoCal debut. The Sparks fans had hoped with their team having a bad year last season that they might win the WNBA draft lottery, which meant that they would win the rights to draft Bueckers. But the Wings won the number one overall pick and gained that ability to draft one of the best young female ballers in the whole wide world.

Unfortunately the Wings weren’t able to hold their lead entering the fourth quarter for long as the Sparks had their star players in Kelsey Plum and Cameron Brink score for them. Sloppy turnovers and a scoring drought were troublesome for Dallas, who needed Paige Buckets to will them to a potential victory. The first basket in the fourth quarter by the Wings was a three-pointer by Bueckers, who scored all but one of the 14 points that were scored by her team in the final quarter. A reverse layup gave her a career-high 36 points as she tapped into the mega1scoring games that she had put on in her final tournament run with her alma mater UConn Huskies just five months earlier. Another three-pointer made it 75-73 Dallas and gave Paige 39 points. Bueckers then made a couple of pull-up jumpers to give the Wings a three-point lead. With 43 points, it seemed like Paige had put in enough effort for her team to win the game. Sadly, that was not how this game ended.

An and-1 basket by Los Angeles forward Dearica Hamby along with the free throw made it a tie score at 79 apiece. Then, there was little to no scoring for the rest of regulation as both teams exchanged missed baskets over several possessions. A technical foul called on the Sparks gave the Wings a technical free throw, which Bueckers took and made to break the tie score. It was 80-79 and Paige had 44 points. After a missed opportunity to win a possession on a jump ball, the Wings stopped the Sparks from scoring and had the ball with 32 seconds left in the game and a fresh shot clock of 24 seconds. For some reason, Dallas did not milk the clock and Aziaha James, Paige’s fellow rookie teammate, made a rookie mistake and shot a three-pointer with 20 seconds left and she missed the shot. The Sparks got the ensuing rebound and they decided not to call a “reset timeout”, but instead let the situation play out and Kelsey Plum took the final shot as time expired. A driving float shot up the middle went in and the Sparks won the game on a buzzer-beater. In spite of Paige Bueckers’ amazing efforts, L.A still found a way to win. With some ball-handling mistakes by the Wings, the Sparks won by the skin of their teeth and Dallas suffered another tough loss in a rebuilding year.

The Wings might have lost, but Paige had a career game. Having 44 points as a “rookie” is impressive and she also tied the all-time WNBA rookie scoring record for points in a game, matching Cynthia Cooper’s 44 that she scored in a game during her debut season for the Houston Comets, a franchise that disbanded in 2009 in the wake of the Great Recession. Forty-four points is also a season-high in scoring for any WNBA player this year, so Paige has that achievement all to herself. In spite of her team needing to get better around her, Bueckers is one of the brightest young stars in the game and she has a bright future in selling out arenas throughout the WNBA due to the amount of young girls who play basketball as a recreational or competitive sport that look up to her as an idol. Paige will have plenty of more visits to Los Angeles throughout her career, including on Sun. Sept 7, which will be the season finale for the Dallas Wings in the 2025 regular season. In the arena that was built by the Black Mamba himself, Bueckers had her own special display of “Mamba Mentality” on the same court that Kobe Bean Bryant played on for 16 seasons in his career. So, Paige Buckets might have just won the Rookie of the Year race in the WNBA this season but only time will tell what the voters think. A 44-point performance that made up for 55% of her team’s points in a single game should definitely help her case.