Paige Bueckers and the No. 7 seed Dallas Wings are officially out of the WNBA playoffs.<\/p>\n
The 2026 postseason continues without the star and her teammates after they lost to the No. 2 seed Golden State Valkyries on Wednesday, Sept. 30. The Wings were defeated 77-73 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
Dallas was facing elimination after Golden State won 104-80 in Game 1 on Sunday, Sept. 27. Cecilia Zandalasini scored a game-high 22 points. Gabby Williams had 20, and Tiffany Hayes added 21 off the bench as the Valkyries cruised to victory.<\/p>\n
Arike Ogunbowale willed the Wings to a 108-100 overtime win over the Valkyries on Wednesday, Sept. 30, recording a career-high 45 points in 42 minutes, which sets a WNBA record for the most points scored in a playoff game.<\/p>\n
The Wings led by as many as 16 points on Friday but could not close out the No. 2 seed Valkyries.<\/p>\n
With Dallas’s season now complete, people may wonder: What’s next for Bueckers? Here’s what’s on the horizon:<\/p>\n
Paige Bueckers’ WNBA offseason plans<\/p>\n
It’s unclear whether Paige Bueckers’ offseason plans will include adding 15 pounds of muscle like they did last year, but she will play in Unrivaled for a second season.<\/p>\n
Bueckers made her debut in the 3×3 league in Jan. 2026, helping lead the expansion team Breeze to a 6-8 record and the playoffs. She finished fourth in scoring (22.1 points per game) and second in assists (5.5 per game). Bueckers also played the fourth most minutes (19 per matchup).<\/p>\n
\u201cShe’s been really ahead of her time, not just on the court, but off the court, her maturity level,\u201d Alex Bazzell, president of Unrivaled, said. \u201cYou know, Paige is a superstar, and Paige is someone that raises the level of everyone else, and I think that’s what’s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paige Bueckers contract details<\/p>\n
Paige Bueckers is on her rookie deal and is expected to play for the Wings during her third season in the WNBA. According to Her Hoops Stats, Bueckers made $500,000 in 2026 and is slated to make $550,000 in 2027.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What’s next for Paige Bueckers? WNBA playoffs over for Dallas Wings star<\/p>\n
Reporting by Meghan L. Hall, USA TODAY \/ USA TODAY<\/p>\n
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paige Bueckers and the No. 7 seed Dallas Wings are officially out of the WNBA playoffs. The 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[309980,99,434],"class_list":["post-869151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-portland_fire","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869151","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=869151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}