Could Paige Bueckers force her way to the Sparks?

Things may not have gone the way of the Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft lottery, but could Paige Bueckers still find her way to Los Angeles?

The Sparks suffered one heck of a gut punch at the 2024 WNBA Draft lottery by falling out of the top spot and into the No. 2 pick. It’s hard to compare to a unicorn like Caitlin Clark, but Paige Bueckers has a resume that can stack up to Clark’s so far in her career.

To seemingly miss out on a player of that caliber, then, is the type of setback you think about for years to come.

Seemingly.

Since the draft lottery, Sparks fans have been searching for any sort of thread to pull on to give them some sort of hope that Bueckers could still land in Los Angeles. But none of that amounted to much as Bueckers is far and away the best player in the class.

It matters little how poorly she may perform this year or if another prospect bursts onto the scene. Paige will be the No. 1 pick this season...unless.

While the Sparks lost all their leverage, Bueckers maintains all of hers. On paper, Los Angeles is a far more appealing market than Dallas and the Sparks, even for how badly things have gone in recent seasons, are a franchise with more prestige than the Wings.

Could Bueckers, then, pull an Eli Manning and force her way to a team that isn’t Dallas? It’s something brought up by Howard Megdal of The IX, who spoke to both WNBA talent evaluators about the possibility (h/t Bullets Forever).

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%.

Now, “WNBA talent evaluators” is a fairly broad term, but he also has some other reporting as well, which came to the same conclusion.

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.

Again, Paige holds the cards here. She does, in fact, still have another year of college eligibility due to injuries and the COVID year that she could use. If she communicates to the Wings that she won’t play for them and, thus, won’t declare, does Dallas then look to move the pick to get something instead of nothing out of the situation?

It’s not entirely farfetched an idea to believe. The Wings haven’t had a head coach last more than two seasons since the 2017 season, or a year after they moved to Dallas.

They did win their first round series in 2023. But that’s the only time they’ve done so since relocating from Tulsa. They've missed the playoffs over the last six seasons as much as they’ve made them. Arike Ogunbowale bolsters their roster, but they don’t have a host of young talent or a great core outside of that awaiting for Bueckers.

For now, all of this is conjecture and hope. No one knows what Paige is thinking outside of Paige herself and those around her. This will continue to play out of the next couple months as well. As a frame of reference, Caitlin Clark declared she was entering the draft in late February.

But if Sparks fans were in search of a reason to have a bit of hope that Paige could still land in Los Angeles, here’s the best I’ve got to offer.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.