Could the Storm land Paige Bueckers?

It may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.

The Seattle Storm are in an interesting situation. After Sue Bird retired and Breanna Stewart left in Free Agency the keys to the kingdom were handed off to All-Star Shooting Guard, Jewell Loyd. Loyd was the remaining piece of Seattle’s “Big 3” which helped the Storm win two more WNBA Championships in 2018 and 2020.

Because Breanna Stewart delayed her Free Agency announcement and the Storm legitimately believed they had a great chance to re-sign her, Seattle lost out on other Free Agents, including Courtney Vandersloot. Instead of the Washington native signing with the Storm, she followed Stewart to New York, leaving Seattle with scraps.

Jewell Loyd found individual success in 2023. She led the WNBA in scoring at 24.7 PPG. She was named to another All-Star team and was voted Second-Team All-WNBA making her one of the 10 best players in the W. However, that did not lead to team success. Even with young Ezi Magbegor developing into an All-Star herself, the team finished with the second-worst record in the entire league with 11 wins and 29 losses.

Fast Forward to the 2024 off-season. This time the Storm were much better prepared to take advantage of Free Agency. They had money to spend, a brand new practice facility and performance center, and two All-Stars under contract (Loyd and Magbegor) to lure additional top players to the Emerald City. Seattle had arguably the best Free Agency period by adding multi-time All-Stars Skylar Diggins-Smith and Nneka Ogwumike.

The team found a lot of success but never lived up to their ultimate potential. Despite winning 25 games and having one of the most successful regular seasons in Storm franchise history, the team fell well short of its goals. And there were noticeable cracks in the armor, especially toward the second half of the season. The team felt out of sync and the coach was clearly disappointed with some of the effort and attitude.

Two years after Loyd was supposed to take up the mantle of the Storm franchise, she has now requested a trade out of Seattle. That brings us to the topic of this article.

Paige Bueckers

As of this writing, the belief is that Seattle will honor Jewell Loyd’s request and try to trade the six-time WNBA All-Star. As I wrote in a recent article, there are a handful of potential trade options the Storm could explore. Of course, it takes two to tango and other teams must also be interested in trading for Loyd as well.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, that one of the likeliest options is for the Storm to send Loyd back home to Chicago. If the Storm are going to trade with the Sky, it’ll almost certainly be one of two options. I have a hard time seeing Chicago being willing to give up Angel Reese, so it’ll either be last year’s third overall pick, Kamilla Cardoso, or this year’s third overall pick, Chicago’s first-round pick.

If the Storm acquire the third overall pick from Chicago that still wouldn’t be good enough to draft Paige Bueckers. However, it might be a central piece to a larger trade package.

But why would the Dallas Wings trade the number one overall pick? Well, they might be “forced” to. I have seen multiple reports, indicating that Paige Bueckers doesn’t want to play for the Wings.

I first read about that possibility from Howard Megdal of The Next. He wrote a piece back in November that Bueckers has leverage and could either stay in college for one more season or force Dallas to trade their pick before declaring for the 2025 WNBA Draft.

Then more recently, Sabreena Merchant of The Athletic wrote a similar story about what she’s hearing from sources around the league. Two stories about one month apart involving Paige Bueckers and her preference to not play for the Dallas Wings.

There is merit to this. The Dallas Wings franchise has struggled to keep its star players over the past several years. Dating back to Skylar Diggins-Smith’s time in the organization. SDS was not treated well by the Wings, especially during her pregnancy. Liz Cambage spent two years in Tulsa (same franchise as Dallas) then stepped away from the WNBA for four years. She returned to the organization as they moved to Dallas and became the Wings. Cambage spent one season there and then demanded a trade. More recently, both Allisha Gray and Marina Mabrey requested trades away from Dallas. And now just over the past week, Satou Sabally has announced that she’s played her last game for the Wings and wants to be traded. The organization has gone through multiple star players and coaches over the past decade.

The phrase “Where there is smoke, there is fire” is appropriate here. There is a reason these stories, from well-known publications, are coming out. Whether it is from agents, people close to Bueckers, or someone else. Someone wants this out there as public knowledge. Why would they want that? Well, it puts more pressure on the Dallas Wings. It also allows other WNBA teams to try and create a trade proposal enticing enough to lure the #1 overall pick away from Dallas.

Normally, in this scenario, General Managers of other teams wouldn’t waste their time trying to pry away the number one pick from the Wings. I can imagine how that phone conversation would go.

Random WNBA GM, “Hey Dallas, do you want to trade us your #1 overall pick?”
Dallas GM, “Hey, go F yourself!” *click*

But if Curt Miller and Greg Bibb are under pressure from Buecker’s camp to arrange a trade. They likely would be more open to trade offers and try to get as much value for the #1 overall pick as possible.

And that’s where Seattle comes in. That’s where the trade of Jewell Loyd comes into play, especially if it’s for Chicago’s third-overall pick. If you’re unable to get the best player in the draft because that player refuses to play for your team, what’s the next best thing? Well, it would be the second-best player in the draft. And if you couldn’t get that, the third-best player.

The Los Angeles Sparks currently own the #2 overall pick in the 2025 draft. I’m sure their General Manager would be enticed to try to acquire the top pick for Bueckers. But what can they offer? Would they be willing to part with the #2 overall pick AND Cameron Brink or Rickea Jackson? I doubt Los Angeles would make that trade, even if it was for Paige Bueckers. Could LA package the #2 overall pick and either Dearica Hamby or Azurá Stevens for the #1 pick? Maybe, but both players are under contract for just this season and will become Unrestricted Free Agents in 2026. Plus their cap hit would have to be managed if Dallas were to take that on. And Stevens also played in Dallas and was previously traded, so she might not want to go back there.

The Sparks could offer the #2 overall pick and their first-round pick in 2026. Oh, but that’s right. They don’t own that draft pick anymore. The Seattle Storm own that pick.

Seattle would have to make a hefty offer to Dallas to take their top selection. It would likely have to include the #3 overall pick (from Chicago) that the Storm would hypothetically get from a Jewell Loyd trade. And then at a minimum, it would have to also include either LA’s 2026 first-round pick, Seattle’s 2026 first-round pick, or Seattle’s 9th overall pick (2025), and possibly a younger player like either Jordan Horston or Gabby Williams.

There are a lot of mental gymnastics going on and hypotheticals in these scenarios but this is certainly feasible. Would it be worth trading Jewell Loyd/3rd overall pick, plus LA’s first-rounder in 2026 (Likely Top 5 and could be #1 overall), or another younger talented player like Gabby Williams or Jordan Horston all for the Storm to acquire Paige Bueckers?

That’s a decision the Storm front office and ownership group would have to ask themselves. What do you think?

One final note, there is another way the Storm could end up with Paige Bueckers. That would require that Bueckers opts to return to UConn for her “final-final season”. Then they would need the LA Sparks to miss the playoffs. If LA does, with their combined record of 2024 and 2025, the Sparks could own the best odds at the #1 pick. That pick is Seattle’s no matter what, even if the Sparks were to win the lottery. In that scenario, the Storm would win the WNBA Lottery for the 5th time in franchise history and select Paige Bueckers #1 overall in 2026.

No matter what happens, it’ll be fascinating to see what Bueckers decides to do. And if she does use her leverage like Eli Manning did with the San Diego Chargers and the New York Giants back in the day. Will she end up in Dallas or somewhere else?

Notes:
Thanks for all the great support! Please tell other WNBA fans about my coverage. Please share, retweet, repost, etc. if you enjoy my articles.
Thanks to Her Hoop Stats and Across the Timeline for being great resources.

Social Media:
Follow me on Bluesky (@wnbastormchasers.bsky.social)
Follow me on Threads (@WNBAStormChasers)
Follow me on X/Twitter (@WNBAStormChaser)