Wings' Paige Bueckers Has Clear Message Before Valkyries Game
Riding the wave of support at Chase Center in San Francisco, the Golden State Valkyries will begin the second half of the WNBA season at home against the Dallas Wings supported by the raucous fans of “Ballhalla”. Friday’s contest is the first ever regular season matchup between the two teams who each had a representative at All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis.
The Valkyries, at 10-12, hope to inch closer back to .500 and slide back into the coveted 8th and final playoff spot in the league during this final stretch. Despite a litany of perimeter stars like four-time All-Star Arike Ogunbowale, 2024 Most Improved Player Dijonai Carrington, and rookie sensation Paige Bueckers, the Wings have struggled to find their footing with a disappointing 7-17 record halfway through the season.
Bueckers, the number one overall pick in this year’s draft, has been as special as advertised: making the All-Star team as a rookie, she leads Dallas in points (18.2), assists (5.5), and steals (1.7) per game just three months after winning the NCAA National Championship with UConn.
Tuesday night was also a positive sign for the franchise in a dominant 87-63 victory at Seattle over the 14-10 Storm. Ogunbowale led the Wings in scoring with 20 points along with three rebounds and three assists in the victory. Now 4-6 in their last 10 games, Bueckers isn’t getting ahead of herself as the team prepares to take on Golden State. She told reporters postgame that she isn’t a “fan of momentum.”
“Alright, well truly I'm not a huge fan of momentum because it takes you away from the present,” Bueckers said (via Joey Mistretta of ClutchPoints). “And lets former games, former possessions dictate what you're doing in that singular possession. So, I think the momentum is just us trying to be better every single day, every single practice that we show up… Not letting any win dictate, like, we want to play the way we're gonna play next game regardless of what happened the game before. Disregarding momentum, we just want to continue to get better every single game.”
Paige Bueckers shut down the value of "momentum" following the Wings' big win against the Storm on Tuesday night. https://t.co/nPYxRZvSk1
— Joey Mistretta (@JoeyMistretta_) July 23, 2025
On the contrary, Golden State has lost three in a row heading into the All-Star break, ending the first half of the season with a 67-58 loss at Seattle.
The Valkyries play by committee–without a 20 point per game scorer. First-time All-Star Kayla Thornton leads the team in scoring at 14 points per game, while veterans Tiffany Hayes and former Wing Veronica Burton don’t trail far behind, averaging 12.8 and 11.0 points respectively.
The Valkyries team–made up of both rising stars and seasoned vets, brings a diverse background of experiences that may help them become the first expansion team in the league to make the playoffs in their inaugural season.
Anwar Stetson is a Multimedia Sports Journalist from Los Angeles, California. He previously worked as a TV News Reporter for KRCR News Channel 7 in Chico, California--covering politics, local news, wildfires, crime, and high school football. As an Assistant Editor for Spectrum Sportsnet: Los Angeles, Anwar worked on award-winning programs Backstage:Lakers and Backstage:Dodgers, giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the two franchises' most prominent athletes. Anwar is a graduate of the University of Southern California, where he received his Master's Degree in Specialized Journalism (Sports Emphasis) in 2019. He graduated from the University of California, Merced with a B.A. in English in 2016. In addition to Sports Illustrated, Anwar covers high school sports for Prep Network, and the WNBA for The Sporting Tribune.