The title kind of states it. Looking at league leaders this morning, the WNBA’s tippy-top player for assists is Dallas Wings’ rookie Paige Bueckers at 6.7 a game.
Behind Paige are Natasha Cloud at 6.6 a game, Skylar Diggins, at 6.4 a game, and Courtney Williams at 6.4. It falls off a bit after that.
But the other leaders are veterans of the league, maybe not in their athletic prime but with all the accumulated basketball IQ that years in the league affords you. Experience lets you learn how to manipulate the defense, which windows are going to close before the ball gets there, where teammates tend to space to. Paige is a rookie with lost time in college. It’s amazing she’s topping this list.
On top of that, the Dallas Wings are ninth in the league in field goal percentage at 41.2. It’s not like her teammates are padding her stats with shot-making. She’s also fifth on the team in Usage Percentage among players who have 50+ minutes played on the season.
Hell yeah.
Paige Bueckers assist numbers come with a caveat
Paige Bueckers’ 0.1 assist-per-game lead over Natasha Cloud is coming in six more minutes. Were Cloud to spend an extra six minutes on the court every game, I’m sure she could find another assist or two.
There’s also the Alyssa Thomas and Caitlin Clark of it all. If you take a look at Basketball Reference’s leaders page instead, you’ll see those names with some big numbers next to them. CC has a nice 9.2 and AT has 8.0.
You see, they have been injured. And to qualify on certain official leaderboards, you have to qualify for a minimum games-played percentage. With AT and CC out, Paige kind of takes over the top spot. And assuming AT and CC come back healthy and stay healthy, that spot isn’t going to be Paige’s much longer.
But it is for now! You can screencap that ESPN page, print it off, and tape it to your fridge. Please do that immediately. I’ll wait here.