Within the past year, Paige Bueckers has expanded the scope of what it means to be a college athlete. She played in a Final Four but also became an equity partner in Unrivaled, designed her own player-edition sneaker for Nike and appeared courtside throughout the country at various sporting events.

In the new name, image and likeness age of college athletics, Bueckers has exerted unprecedented agency in her career and in building a brand for herself. What the budding superstar still can’t control is what comes next. Last month, the WNBA Draft lottery all but ensured that Bueckers’ next basketball stop will be with the Dallas Wings after they won the No. 1 pick.

For better or worse, that is the nature of the draft. Players have limited influence on their destination. They can choose to meet with or work out with certain teams and potentially withhold their medical records, but ultimately, teams hold the bulk of the power.

Bueckers, however, is in a rare situation where she wields more leverage thanks to her marketability, NIL portfolio and college eligibility. (She can return for a sixth season at UConn because of COVID-19 eligibility rules.) If she decides against playing for the Wings — and the buzz around the league is that Dallas was not her preferred destination — she could exert whatever levers she can to get where she wants as soon as possible.

Although Bueckers has indicated that she is treating this season as her senior year, she can return to UConn if she doesn’t want to enter the WNBA in 2025. Whether that’s because she is chasing a national championship, prefers a different draft destination or wants to delay her pro career until the institution of a new WNBA collective bargaining agreement, there are incentives to play one more season with the Huskies. Even if Bueckers elects to go pro, she could simply demand a trade.

Paige Bueckers says she did not watch the WNBA Draft Lottery over the weekend

“I mostly dealt with it by focusing on having a great practice today” pic.twitter.com/049M5iFilR

— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) November 20, 2024

“There’s just a lot of noise — way more noise in terms of rumors, in terms of all those things around women’s basketball, now more than ever,” said ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, who played at Tennessee until her career ended in 2015. “I don’t know if the rumors are true, but this is the first time I’ve heard it to this degree.”

Though Bueckers likely would be a star at any WNBA franchise, Dallas doesn’t provide the most opportunities for a player with a massive built-in fan base and marketing allure. The Wings have been notoriously unstable since moving to Dallas in 2016. They have cycled through coaches every two seasons and are searching for another. In 2018, a postgame altercation between head coach Fred Williams and CEO Greg Bibb led to Williams losing his job. Stars haven’t exactly flocked to the Wings in free agency, and some of their highest-profile players have publicly bashed the organization; Skylar Diggins-Smith called out the lack of support she felt she received during her pregnancy in 2018-19. A constant drain of talent has gone in the other direction. Diggins-Smith and Liz Cambage asked out via trades, as did Allisha Gray and Marina Mabrey in the 2023 offseason.

In fairness to Dallas, the other lottery options also had their flaws. Teams are at the bottom of the league for a reason. Even if Bueckers would rather have gone to Los Angeles or Washington, the Sparks don’t have a practice facility and are in a four-year playoff drought, and the Mystics don’t have a head coach or general manager and play in a 4,200-seat arena.

Given the state of the lottery teams, Bueckers could return to college by foregoing her draft eligibility at the end of the NCAA season and putting off the WNBA until 2026. That unfortunately still leaves her at the mercy of the lottery, but perhaps the threat of playing another season for UConn would motivate the Wings to take a trade demand seriously.

Furthermore, it might behoove her financially to postpone the start of her WNBA career. By entering this season’s draft, she would lock herself into a four-year rookie-scale contract that averages $87,000 annually. However, the WNBA will enact a new collective bargaining agreement before the 2026 season, one that figures to increase player compensation.

The last time the league instituted a new CBA, second- and third-year players were stuck in their rookie contracts from the previous agreement. That led to awkward and unfair situations; Napheesa Collier, already an All-Star as a rookie in 2019, earned the lowest salary in the league in 2020 and 2021 despite being one of its best players. That’s a predicament Bueckers would rather avoid.

If Bueckers elects to leave UConn after this season, which has been her public stance, the primary tool at her disposal is demanding a trade from Dallas. Golden State seems like an ideal destination in terms of market size and organizational strength, plus the Valkyries are motivated to get a star quickly, though Bueckers is best suited to provide a list of suitors to encourage negotiations.

Player empowerment is on the rise in professional sports, but that hasn’t been the case for the draft itself in recent years. In the WNBA, Kelsey Plum accepted her fate in San Antonio in 2017. Aliyah Boston willingly went to Indiana, then a five-win team displaced for three summers due to arena renovations. Before NIL, no other recourse for women’s basketball players existed, as players such as Satou Sabally (who was picked by the Wings) felt compelled to enter the draft to start earning a salary. Even Boston didn’t have the star power to shake the system. Analysts who spoke with The Athletic said they couldn’t recall WNBA prospects trying to angle their way to a different destination in the draft.

The NWSL eliminated drafts. In men’s sports, salaries are so lucrative that there’s a willingness to sacrifice individual autonomy, but the finances aren’t there on the women’s side. A five-figure salary isn’t enough to oblige a star to play in a city that isn’t of her choosing, for an organization that hasn’t had a winning culture.

Trade demands are old hat for WNBA veterans, and stars usually win. Within the last 10 years, Kahleah Copper, Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles successfully negotiated their way to new teams. Fowles even sat out half a season while waiting for the right deal. Bueckers would hardly be noteworthy if she expressed a desire to play for a different team, even if the timing of her request would be unique.

“With these players being able to make money on their own and start their brands and start their careers outside of school and off the court, it does open up different avenues,” Carter said. “They just have more options now.”

Should Bueckers play chicken with Dallas after being drafted and hold out until she is traded, she can cash in on her corporate sponsorships with Gatorade, Nike and Bose, among others, even if she isn’t earning a salary to play basketball. She also has an equity stake in Unrivaled, a new 3×3 women’s basketball league, that could prove fruitful. Those earnings would more than make up for the $78,831 contract of the projected top pick.

GO DEEPER

Paige Bueckers is used to high expectations. But dealing with the pressure took time to learn

Advertisement

The idea of willingly not playing basketball might be tough for Bueckers, who has suffered many injuries. But if anything, the precariousness of her career should motivate her to find an ideal WNBA landing spot as soon as possible.

There is a long runway between now and the 2025 draft, plenty of time for Bueckers and her representation to assess Dallas and gauge the market for a trade if the Wings don’t meet her standards. How the Huskies play in 2024-25 could also inform Bueckers’ willingness to spend another season in Storrs. Regardless, Bueckers holds her fate in her hands more than other prospective No. 1 picks. If she wants to reject the path laid out for her by four ping-pong balls, she has the power to do so.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo of Paige Bueckers: Michael Miller / ISI Photos / Getty Images)

No Iowa women’s basketball player will wear No. 22 again.

That is because, on Feb. 2, the Hawkeyes will retire Caitlin Clark’s jersey during an in-arena ceremony as Iowa takes on USC at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Over her four years with the program, Clark rewrote both the Iowa and NCAA record books. Last winter, she became the all-time women’s NCAA Division I scoring leader, major college scoring leader and all-time Division I men’s and women’s scoring champion in a 17-day span. During her career, Clark also broke the record for 3-pointers in a single season, made two national championship appearances, was a four-time AP All-American and was twice named the National Player of the Year.

All of that only relays part of Clark’s legacy, however, as her impact was seen and felt in the frenzy surrounding every game she played. Iowa broke countless attendance, merchandise and television records. ESPN said the 2024 national championship between the Hawkeyes and Gamecocks was the most-watched basketball game (men’s or women’s college or pro) since 2019, averaging 18.9 million viewers and peaking at 24.1 million viewers, a 90 percent increase from the 2023 title game.

“I’m forever proud to be a Hawkeye and Iowa holds a special place in my heart that is bigger than just basketball,” Clark said in a statement. “It means the world to me to receive this honor and to celebrate it with my family, friends and alumni. It will be a great feeling to look up in the rafters and see my jersey alongside those that I’ve admired for so long.”

To the rafters.

2.2.25@CaitlinClark22 x #Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/Qjq1Y1VfrZ

— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) December 18, 2024

“Caitlin Clark has not only redefined excellence on the court but has also inspired countless young athletes to pursue their dreams with passion and determination,” Director of Athletics Beth Goetz said. “Her remarkable achievements have left an indelible mark on the University of Iowa and the world of women’s basketball.”

When Clark’s No. 22 is raised to the rafters it will join Michelle Edwards’ No. 30 and Megan Gustafson’s No. 10 to become the third women’s basketball player to have their numbers honored at Iowa.

With Clark having transitioned to the professional ranks — where she made the All-WNBA first-team as a rookie with the Indiana Fever — the Hawkeyes entered into a transitional season. Shortly after last year, longtime head coach Lisa Bluder retired, giving way for her longtime associate head coach, Jan Jensen, to take on the lead role. Now led by junior forward Hannah Stuelke and senior transfer guard Lucy Olsen, Iowa opened the season winning its first eight games. However, the Hawkeyes have dropped two of their last three contests, falling to Tennessee and Michigan State.

Iowa’s matchup on Feb. 2 will be its first against the Trojans following USC’s move to the Big Ten. USC is led by JuJu Watkins, who despite being only a sophomore, is already viewed as an heir apparent to Clark in terms of continuing to elevate women’s college basketball.

Tipoff for USC-Iowa is set for 1:30 p.m. ET and the contest will air on FOX.

“Retiring her number is a testament to her extraordinary contributions and a celebration of her legacy that will continue to inspire future generations,” Goetz said. “Hawkeye fans are eager to say thank you for so many incredible moments.”

Required reading

(Photo: Kirby Lee / USA Today)

It was only six months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when, on a balmy September evening in eastern Germany, I came across Mykhailo Mudryk shortly after midnight.

This was September 2022 and Mudryk was by then an emerging talent for the Ukrainian champions, Shakhtar Donetsk. He scored and was the team’s major attacking threat in a shock 4-1 victory for Shakhtar in the opening match of their Champions League campaign against German team RB Leipzig.

For Mudryk and his team-mates, the Champions League offered respite from the horrors of home. When Russian bombs landed in Ukraine in February 2022, many of Shakhtar’s foreign players took emergency refuge in a windowless room of a Kyiv hotel, before interventions from multiple national embassies, football federations and UEFA, the European football governing body, hatched an escape plan.

Shakhtar had, at that time, more than a dozen Brazilian players on their books, but many left for safer climes when the Ukrainian season ceased and did not return. Football did resume in Ukraine for the 2022-23 season and Shakhtar, who were first uprooted from their home in Donetsk in 2014 following Russian-backed incursions, were playing home matches in the relatively safer city of Lviv, in Ukraine’s west — though games were still frequently paused by air raid sirens.

Shakhtar’s squad was a shell of its former self, including only one player bought for more than £2million ($2.51m at current rates). This squad was largely comprised of young and inexperienced men. When they played against Real Madrid the following month, their starting team included 10 Ukrainian players, eight who had been produced by the club’s youth system and seven were aged 23 or below.

Mudryk, only 21, all of a sudden became the poster boy of a team whose indomitable spirit and improbable resistance appeared to encapsulate the Ukrainian struggle.

On that evening in Germany, The Athletic was embedded with the Ukrainian side to produce a documentary about their attempts to play on in the midst of war. I briefly spoke to Mudryk and his midfield team-mate and best friend Georgiy Sudakov as they headed out of their hotel in Leipzig in the early hours of the morning. Their heads were spinning after an unlikely victory, the adrenalin coursing through their veins. But, they explained, they also wanted to walk freely in the night, in a place where there were no shelters, no screams, no air raid sirens to force them rapidly underground, to remind themselves of normal life. For half an hour, they did that, before returning to their rooms.

At that point, Mudryk’s star was only just beginning to shine. He was raw, in the extreme, and had it not been for the untimely exodus of Brazilian players, it is unlikely he would have become risen to prominence so rapidly.

This was a player who only debuted for his national team in June 2022 yet by January 2023, following a handful of impressive performances in the Champions League, including against Real Madrid, Mudryk became the most expensive Ukrainian footballer in history. He signed for Premier League side Chelsea, who committed an initial £62m, plus £26.5m in potential additional payments dependent on his and Chelsea’s success.

This week’s news that Mudryk has tested positive for the banned substance meldonium is a dagger to the heart of Ukrainian football and leaves the player in a fight to salvage his career. The extent of the damage will hinge on the result of Mudryk’s ‘B’ sample, which is yet to be revealed, as the adverse finding relates to his ‘A’ sample, but he has been provisionally suspended by the English Football Association.

Chelsea’s commitment to acquiring the player was significant, tying him to a seven-and-a-half-year contract, with the option of another year. Even in the middle of the invasion, Shakhtar managed to attract a bidding war, such was the interest. He had previously been pursued by Germany’s Bayer Leverkusen, as well as Newcastle United, Brentford and Everton in the Premier League, but it came down to a fight between Arsenal and Chelsea.

At the time, Shakhtar’s director of football Dario Srna told The Athletic: “If somebody wants to buy Mudryk, they must pay huge, huge, huge money. Otherwise the president of the club (Rinat Akhmetov) will not sell him. All the clubs must respect the president, respect Shakhtar and in the end they must respect Mykhaylo Mudryk, who is one of the best players I saw. The price is so big.”

Srna said he rated Mudryk as being only behind Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior in his wide forward position and insisted big money would be required, considering Manchester United signed Antony from Ajax in a £86m deal and Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund £73m, while Manchester City bought Jack Grealish for £100m.

Shakhtar, conscious of the power of sport in steering the narrative around the war, also announced upon completion of the transfer that their own owner, Rinat Akhmetov, would donate $25m to the war effort, to support in particular the defence of Mariupol and the families of those who have lost loved ones. The agreement with Chelsea also included a clause that said Shakhtar would play a future friendly against Chelsea in Donetsk, when and if that area of Ukraine is no longer occupied by Russian forces.

“It is written into the contract,” Sergei Palkin, the Shakhtar chief executive, told The Athletic in January 2023. “But actually, we did not even need to read it in the contract because Behdad Eghbali (the Chelsea co-owner) spoke with our president. Behdad supports Ukraine a lot because he is American and it is an English club, so this is a positive triangle. When you say England and Ukraine, it is important for our war support.

“It was Behdad who proposed (the friendly), because he said he wanted to help Ukraine, to help Ukrainian refugees and to support Ukrainian people. This match (in Donetsk) would be like a miracle (having not played in their home city since 2014). We would have this match every weekend if we could.”

When Mudryk was unveiled at Stamford Bridge, he did so wrapped in a flag of Ukraine. The player was born and raised in the city of Krasnohrad, close to Kharkiv, one of the most brutally hit areas of the country. “Since the the beginning of the full-scale war, my city has been bombarded with missiles day and night,” Mudryk said, speaking in a powerful video of 13 Ukrainian players talking about the impact of the war on their hometowns, released by the Ukrainian Football Association before the European Championship in the summer of 2024.

Mudryk (left) competes with Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard last month (Ryan Pierse / Getty Images)

He is a more reserved figure than his Ukrainian compatriot Oleksandr Zinchenko, who has been at the forefront of media initiatives to promote solidarity with Ukraine. He appears to be a devoutly religious figure, a follower of the orthodox Christian faith, who carries religious icons with him to games. On his chest, he has a tattoo that reads: “Dear god — if today I lose my hope, please remind me that your plans are better than my dreams”.

For his national team, the speaking has more often been done on the field, most notably when he scored the winner in a victory over Iceland to take his country to Euro 2024. Ukraine exited that tournament at the group stage and Mudryk did not score, although his nation went out only on goal difference with all four teams in Group E tied on four points after three games.

For club and country, he is yet to fulfil his potential. He has scored only five goals and recorded four assists in 53 Premier League appearances for Chelsea. This week’s sample revelation cast doubt on his ability to play at all, meldonium being a drug that previously saw the tennis star Maria Sharapova barred from competing.

GO DEEPER

Explaining Mudryk’s drugs ban: What is meldonium – and possible punishments

The adverse test was reported during a routine urine test, according to a Chelsea statement. The club added that Mudryk “has confirmed categorically that he has never knowingly used any banned substances”.

Writing on Instagram, Mudryk said the result “has come as a complete shock as I have never knowingly used any banned substances or broken any rules”.

He added: “I am working closely with my team to investigate how this could have happened.

“I know that I have not done anything wrong and remain hopeful that I will be back on the pitch soon. I cannot say any more now due to the confidentiality of the process, but I will as soon as I can.”

The English Football Association’s (FA) anti-doping regulations state that any breaches will be dealt with as strict liability violations. For example, a player will be found guilty of a violation if a prohibited substance is found in that player’s body. It is not necessary to demonstrate intent. A player’s alleged lack of intent or knowledge is not a valid defence to a charge.

A violation of the FA’s anti-doping regulations carries a maximum penalty of a four-year suspension, although mitigating factors can reduce that from anywhere from two years to just a month. The B sample will be key.

Shakhtar’s Georgiy Sudakov voiced support for his friend Mudryk (Christof Koepsel / Getty Images)

As Mudryk’s career hangs in the balance, the Ukrainian football establishment appears to be rallying behind him. Multiple sources in Ukraine, who remain anonymous because they did not have permission to speak, have indicated to The Athletic that the player suspects he may have been sabotaged while he was away with his country’s national team this season — a claim we have seen no evidence to support — but which is being taken seriously in his own country.

On Instagram, the Shakhtar midfielder Sudakov posted a message of support, urging his friend to “stay strong”.

The Shakhtar CEO Palkin, meanwhile, wrote that Mudryk is a “high-profile professional athlete”, adding that he has complete trust that the player “did not use any banned substance”.

Palkin said: “I am confident that he will prove his innocence.” Time will tell whether their faith is warranted.

(Top photo: Etsuo Hara/Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)