Cheryl Reeve Wants Paige Bueckers to 'Hate' Playing Lynx After WNBA Draft

Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve sent a clear message about Minnesota native Paige Bueckers after the 2025 WNBA Draft.

Oct 18, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve talks to the media before game four of the 2024 WNBA Finals against the New York Liberty at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

The least surprising pick of the 2025 WNBA Draft was the very first one, when former UConn Huskies superstar guard Paige Bueckers was drafted by the Dallas Wings.

Bueckers has been the consensus No. 1 pick of the 2025 WNBA Draft ever since she decided to return to UConn for one more season last year instead of joining an already stacked 2024 draft class. And that choice proved to be a wise one, as the 23-year-old ended her college career as a national champion and secured herself as the top prospect in this year's draft.

Bueckers is from Edina, Minnesota, which is a suburb of Minneapolis. Therefore, she spent a lot of her childhood watching fellow UConn legend Maya Moore winning WNBA championships (four, to be exact) with the Minnesota Lynx from 2011-2018.

While Bueckers playing for her hometown team would have been storybook, the Lynx are already WNBA championship contenders and weren't close to being able to draft the former UConn star.

Lynx head coach and President of Basketball Operations Cheryl Reeve spoke with the media after the WNBA Draft ended on Monday night. And at one point, she opened up about Bueckers' selection.

"Paige has been, I don't know how many years ago, it was 2014 for me, that I saw her at the gym at Lifetime," Reeve said, per an X post from Andrew Dukowitz. "Obviously, there have been a number of good Minnesota players, but for Paige, [she's] the best since Lindsay Whalen.

"It's fun, it's fun for the state," Reeve continued. "But I know that Target Center will be filled with fans. And we just want each time that she plays that she learns to hate the Lynx."

Cheryl Reeve on Paige Bueckers being drafter 1st overall

“It was 2014 for me, that I saw her in a gym, at lifetime… for Paige, the best since Lindsay Whalen, it’s fun, it’s fun for the state… we just want each time, when she plays, she learns to hate the Lynx” pic.twitter.com/PtXen3PQei

— Andrew Dukowitz (@adukeMN) April 15, 2025

Reeve is saying that she wants the Lynx to be so dominant against Bueckers' Wings squad that the Minnesota native comes to dread her homecoming games. And given how great the Lynx are, this is a realistic outcome.