MINNEAPOLIS — Ten miles southwest of where Dallas Wings rookie Paige Bueckers received a roaring ovation Wednesday night at the Target Center, she first learned how to shoot a basketball. She was just another anonymous ponytailed kid who spent her winters in the gymnasium. It’s a part of the culture here, she says now with the gift of hindsight, and a credit to biting Minnesota snowstorms — basketball blessings in the form of subzero temps and bone-chilling winds.

Bueckers grew up playing in gyms across the state, then the region, then the country, her name slowly gaining more recognition and acclaim with every passing season. She did so in the shadows of a basketball dynasty being born with the Minnesota Lynx on the shoulders (and passes) of another Minnesota kid — Lindsay Whalen, a point guard who grew up in an era without the WNBA. Whalen, who hailed from Hutchinson, stayed home and led the Gophers to their first Final Four appearance in 2004 before being drafted by the Connecticut Sun as the No. 4 pick. When Whalen came back to Minnesota in 2010, Bueckers was 10 years old, an avid basketball fan eager for the success Whalen and the Lynx were about to achieve.

From 2011 to 2017, the Minnesota Lynx won four WNBA titles. The core players from that run — Whalen, Maya Moore, Rebekkah Brunson, Seimone Augustus and Sylvia Fowles — now have their numbers retired, hanging from the Target Center rafters. Bueckers vividly remembers those days of regularly attending games. She can recount the rivalry with the Los Angeles Sparks, the 2017 WNBA Finals series played at the Barn (Minnesota’s home gym) while the Target Center underwent renovations, and the way Cheryl Reeve coached.

“The dynasty Cheryl created is something to admire and aspire to be,” she said.

We’ve got Paige… you’ve got problems 🙂 pic.twitter.com/AEHUAwCjHj

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) May 20, 2025

Wednesday night, five years after leaving for UConn — where Bueckers became an international basketball star; name, image and likeness darling; and finally, last month, a national champion — she was back in her home state. But this time, she was there as a visitor. Over the last few years, she’s rarely made it back, typically only in August to see family and friends, soak up the last parts of summer and visit the Minnesota State Fair.

In her first appearance in Target Center as a WNBA player, she notched her first professional double-double — 12 points and 10 assists. Even with the small heroics from the No. 1 draft pick, it wasn’t enough to tip the scales for the Wings, who dropped to 0-3 on the season with the 85-81 loss.

Before this homecoming, Bueckers was peppered with questions about her return. What would it be like? How would she feel? What local haunts would she visit?

She had prepared for it like any other game, she said — a veteran-like answer to an expected question. When Wednesday came, she really tried to approach it as she would if it were in any other venue. But this one, she acknowledges, hit differently. When she took the floor, it wasn’t just any other opponent; it was the Lynx. It wasn’t just any other coach; it was Reeve (with Whalen and Brunson as assistants beside her). And it wasn’t just any other gym; it was the Target Center.

For years, she has talked about inspiring the next generation of players. But here, those words about seeing herself in the stands were different. They weren’t theoretical.

“To see all the little girls and people in the stands and realize that was you just about 10, 15 years ago,” Bueckers said. “You never take it for granted how blessed we are to be able to play in this league and to play at this level.”

In high school, Bueckers played in the Target Center for the 2018 state title with her Hopkins team. She scored 37 points, but the rest of her team scored just 26 as it lost to Eastview. After the game, Eastview coach Molly Kasper said: “She is going to probably be in the WNBA one day.”

There is nothing like friends and family 🧡

Paige Bueckers is just a kid from Minnesota getting showered with love after playing in the place she grew up for the first time in her WNBA career pic.twitter.com/qKx0t5aKGY

— WNBA (@WNBA) May 22, 2025

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The breadcrumbs Bueckers left in the Target Center along the way provided even more proof.

Four years later, Bueckers was back at the Target Center with UConn as a sophomore point guard in her second consecutive Final Four appearance. She led the Huskies in scoring (14) and rebounds (six), but it wasn’t enough to overcome South Carolina.

Now, three years later, she was back as a WNBA rookie. So, no, Wednesday night was not just like any other night. It couldn’t have been.

She understands there are players not much older than she who grew up without a professional league to which they could aspire. She knows there are plenty of women who put in the time she did without knowing whether the WNBA would exist in which to play.

Bueckers had a dynastic franchise in her backyard, growing up at a time in Minnesota when professional athletic excellence was synonymous only with women’s professional sports. From 2011 to 2018, the Twins and Timberwolves each made the postseason only once, the Vikings made the playoffs three times and once out of the wild-card game. The Wild — the most successful major professional franchise at the time not named Lynx — got to the NHL conference quarterfinals once.

Meanwhile, the Lynx were on a historic run that set a standard for WNBA teams for years to come. And Bueckers was there to witness it all.

“They were everything I aspired to be,” Bueckers said of that dynasty. “It gave me something to work for and admire. To be able to see what you want to be is very important. Growing up, that was a huge part of the reason why I wanted to be in this league.”

Today, Bueckers is here certainly because of her own making, but also because of the people and players — many of whom wore Lynx uniforms — who showed her how it could be done. In the stands Wednesday night, hundreds could tell their own Bueckers story about how they know her or how she inspired them. In her own way, Bueckers could turn that back to them. She couldn’t point out all of her family members, Hopkins and AAU teammates and friends in the arena, but she was grateful to have them there for a night that, she acknowledged, was different from all the others.

“To have them here, it means everything to me,” she said. “Because they were a huge part of my story in getting here.”

Among that group, she includes her Wednesday night opponent: the Minnesota Lynx.

(Photo: Ellen Schmidt / Getty Images)