Wings' Paige Bueckers Welcomed by Kyrie Irving in Video After No. 1 WNBA Draft Pick

One basketball star welcomed another to North Texas following the 2025 WNBA draft.

Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving congratulated Paige Bueckers on being the No. 1 pick of the Dallas Wings. Irving told Bueckers he's "so happy that you're going to be right down the street" and that he sees a bright future ahead for the UConn playmaker:

The Wings didn't spring any last-minute surprises Monday night. They kept the top overall selection and used it on Bueckers, who was universally considered the best player available.

The 6'0" guard averaged 19.8 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.1 steals across her time with the Huskies. She also shot 53.1 percent from the floor and 42.3 percent from beyond the arc.

The expectations for Bueckers couldn't be much higher.

The Wings haven't had much consistency from year to year since moving to Dallas in 2016, and they've built a reputation for losing their brightest talents (Liz Cambage, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Satou Sabally). Between getting Bueckers and major infrastructural changes to come, a new era may lie ahead.

Team CEO Greg Bibb didn't downplay what Monday night represented.

"Days like today don't come very often," he said to Sportico's Eric Jackson. "It's an opportunity to have a transformative moment for our franchise for the next decade or better."

The timing of Bueckers' arrival couldn't be much better for Dallas basketball as a whole, either, with the city still stewing over the Luka Dončić trade. The anger from that move will linger for a long time, but having another generational star in the city should help.