The Dallas Wings won the WNBA draft lottery that is widely presumed to be a selection of Paige Bueckers with the top overall pick, but the UConn star apparently coveted a different destination.
ESPN’s Michael Voepel reported that Bueckers had another team she hoped to wind up with.
“Sources around the league have indicated that the Los Angeles Sparks, who got the No. 2 pick in the lottery, would have been Bueckers’ preferred option,” Voepel wrote.
“Like the Wings, the Sparks also currently don’t have a head coach. But Los Angeles is a gigantic market and a team that could also have used a guard like Bueckers.”
Unlike the NBA and men’s college basketball where seasons run concurrently, the women’s college basketball season and WNBA run essentially back-to-back.
Bueckers will thus play her final season at UConn, get drafted in April and then be thrown into a whirlwind of a WNBA rookie season that kicks off in May.
With the worst record in the league at 25-55 the last two seasons, the Sparks had a 44.2 percent chance to win the WNBA draft lottery.
However, the Wings actually had a slightly higher chance at winning the lottery — 45.4 percent — because they also held the rights to a pick swap with the Chicago Sky.
When the lottery results were announced, there was an audible groan at the Sparks’ watch party, as someone off-camera in the background asked, “Seriously?”
Bueckers and the Huskies have +450 odds to win the women’s national championship this season, according to the latest odds on FanDuel.
They trail only defending champion South Carolina, which has +200 odds.