{"id":151946,"date":"2025-09-12T17:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/151946\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T17:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:37:10","slug":"dallas-wings-star-paige-bueckers-named-ap-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/151946\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings star Paige Bueckers named AP Rookie of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas Wings<\/a> guard Paige Bueckers<\/a> was announced Friday as The Associated Press\u2019 Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n

Over her first 36 WNBA games in 2025, Bueckers averaged 19.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.6 steals while shooting .477 from the field and .331 from three.<\/p>\n

Bueckers tallied the third-most points (692) and assists (194) by a rookie in WNBA history, while posting the highest single-game scoring performance ever by a rookie with her 44-point outing at the Los Angeles Sparks on Aug. 20<\/a>. <\/p>\n

She is the only rookie in WNBA history<\/a> to average at least 19 points per game while shooting at least 47% from the field.<\/p>\n

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Bueckers was also an AP All-WNBA Second Team selection and unanimous choice to the AP All-Rookie Team.<\/p>\n

The No. 1 overall draft selection out of UConn set Wings franchise rookie records for points, points per game, assists and assists per game.<\/p>\n

She was honored as WNBA Rookie of the Month three times in 2025<\/a> (June, July, August), becoming just the 10th player in WNBA history and first in Wings franchise history to earn the distinction three times. <\/p>\n

With her All-WNBA Second Team nod, Bueckers is just the third rookie in league history to garner AP All-WNBA honors, joining Caitlin Clark (2024) and Breanna Stewart (2016).<\/p>\n

Bueckers is the second AP Rookie of the Year in Wings franchise history, joining Allisha Gray in 2017. Dallas is the third franchise to boast multiple rookies of the year, along with the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever.<\/p>\n

Bueckers was joined on the AP All-Rookie team by Washington\u2019s Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, Connecticut\u2019s Leila Lacan, Golden State\u2019s Janelle Salaun and Seattle\u2019s Dominique Malonga.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Aces star A\u2019ja Wilson was named AP Player of the Year, and was also honored as the AP Defensive Player of the Year for the third time in four seasons.<\/p>\n

Wilson, Napheesa Collier of Minnesota and Alyssa Thomas of Phoenix headlined the AP All-WNBA first team. The trio were unanimous picks. They were joined by Atlanta\u2019s Gray and Indiana\u2019s Kelsey Mitchell.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s Sabrina Ionescu, Bueckers, Seattle\u2019s Nneka Ogwumike, Los Angeles\u2019 Kelsey Plum and Las Vegas\u2019 Jackie Young were on the second team.<\/p>\n

The WNBA will announce its postseason awards over the course of the playoffs, which begin Sunday.<\/p>\n

The AP voting is done by a 14-member national media panel that votes on the power poll each week. It\u2019s the 10th year of the awards.<\/p>\n

Other AP WNBA award winners<\/p>\n

\u2014 Coach of the Year: Natalie Nakase. She led Golden State to a playoff berth in the expansion team\u2019s inaugural season. It\u2019s the first time that a first-year team made the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Comeback Player of the Year: Shakira Austin. The Washington Mystics forward missed most of last season with a hip injury and subsequent ankle sprain. Austin averaged 12.7 points and 6.4 rebounds this season.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Most Improved Player: Veronica Burton. The Golden State Valkyries guard made the most of her opportunity with the expansion franchise. Burton averaged career highs in points (11.9), assists (6.0), rebounds (4.4) and minutes (29.4).<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sixth Woman of the Year: Naz Hillmon. The Atlanta Dream forward had a career season, averaging 8.6 points and 6.2 rebounds to help the Dream secure the third seed in the postseason. She came off the bench in 27 of the team\u2019s 44 games and has played in 151 consecutive contests overall.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this post.<\/p>\n

Find more Wings coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers was announced Friday as The Associated Press\u2019 Rookie of the Year. Over her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[14537,2834,2833,99,13469,434],"class_list":["post-151946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-brief","tag-dallas-wings","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-sports","tag-wings","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}