{"id":876228,"date":"2026-10-09T11:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/876228\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T11:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:16:12","slug":"indiana-fevers-kelsey-mitchell-sends-clear-message-to-paige-bueckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/876228\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever&#8217;s Kelsey Mitchell Sends Clear Message to Paige Bueckers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paige Bueckers\u2019 second season with the Dallas Wings ended in disappointment once again, with the team falling to the Golden State Valkyries in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. Despite that, however, Bueckers has certainly earned the admiration of her peers, including Indiana Fever star Kelsey Mitchell.<\/p>\n<p>Bueckers averaged 20.9 points, 4.1 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.0 steal in 42 regular-season games in 2026. Even better, she helped lead a major turnaround for the Dallas franchise, which finished at the bottom of the standings in 2025 with a 10-34 record.<\/p>\n<p>The Wings finished the campaign with a 27-17 win-loss tally, good for seventh in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>Following the Wings\u2019 playoff exit, Bueckers took to social media to reflect on her season and share her appreciation for the Dallas organization.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6dc88362-4837-4ae1-bd98-31ca1ffc6dec.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3840\" height=\"2560\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6dc88362-4837-4ae1-bd98-31ca1ffc6dec.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers (5) looks on during a WNBA game.Jerome Miron-Imagn Images via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYear 2,\u201d Bueckers wrote, along with several photos of herself and her teammates taken during the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnother year of a full healthy season of hoops. Thank you God! Lots of learning, lots of growth, and a whole lot to be proud of. Thank you to the Dallas organization and thank you to the best teammates in the world. I had a ball this year and built so many new relationships and memories. So much room for improvement and so much room to grow, very excited to get back to work. Beauty in the journey &amp; grace in the waiting. Gotta love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bueckers\u2019 post drew plenty of reactions, including one from Mitchell. The Fever star kept her message for the Wings star simple, albeit meaningful.<\/p>\n<p>\u201crespect, 5,\u201d Mitchell wrote.<\/p>\n<p>For what it\u2019s worth, <a data-ylk=\"elmt:article-inline-link;\" href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/wnba\/paige-bueckers-fever-hardest-player-guard\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Bueckers had previously expressed<\/a> her admiration for Mitchell, acknowledging that she\u2019s the hardest player to guard in the WNBA today.<\/p>\n<p>Although they compete against each other on the court, the two clearly share a mutual respect for one another.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"elmt:article-inline-link;\" href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/wnba\/indiana-fever\/sophie-cunningham-makes-her-opinion-of-indiana-fever-fans-extremely-clear\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Related: Sophie Cunningham Makes Her Opinion of Indiana Fever Fans Extremely Clear<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This story was originally published by <a data-ylk=\"elmt:article-inline-link;\" href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/wnba\/indiana-fever\/indiana-fever-kelsey-mitchell-sends-clear-message-to-paige-bueckers\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Athlon Sports<\/a> on Oct 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the <a data-ylk=\"elmt:article-inline-link;\" href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/wnba\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">WNBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a <a data-ylk=\"elmt:article-inline-link;\" href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=athlonsports.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paige Bueckers\u2019 second season with the Dallas Wings ended in disappointment once again, with the team falling to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-876228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876228","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=876228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}