UNCASVILLE, Conn. — It took former UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers less than a day of practice to start poking fun at her new veteran teammates after the Dallas Wings selected her No. 1 overall in the 2025 WNBA draft.

Wings guard DiJonai Carrington knew Bueckers on a casual level before she joined the roster, but when Dallas gave each player a chance to post from the team’s X account on the first day of training camp, Carrington was baffled to see Bueckers use her 280 characters to take a shot at her. She hadn’t competed against Bueckers since UConn’s infamous 69-67 win over Carrington’s Baylor squad in the 2021 Elite Eight, and they played on the same side during almost the entire practice, but that didn’t stop Bueckers from telling more than 78,000 followers,“DiJonai can’t guard me.”

“I think she came in with me on her hit list. It’s targeting,” Carrington joked after the Wings’ shootaround at Mohegan Sun Arena on Tuesday. “I think we’re just similar in the sense of being lighthearted. We don’t take things too seriously and just like to have a good time.”

Carrington spent the first four years of her WNBA career playing for the Connecticut Sun, where she was almost always one of the youngest members of the roster. She took on a starting role for the first time in 2024 and earned Most Improved Players honors, but she is positioned in Dallas as one of the most experienced veterans. Carrington calls Bueckers her “punishment” for the way she acted towards Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner when they led the Sun from 2020-24, but she also absorbed plenty of leadership advice from the All-Star duo that she can now apply with rookies of her own.

“I’ve always tried to lead by example, and that’s one thing that I definitely took from AT, just how she played on the court,” Carrington said. “She played hard every possession. Offense, defense, no matter if she missed a shot, turned it over, whatever, you were going to get the same effort on the other side of the ball … I think with DB it’s just her nurturing nature and trying to just know how to talk to each person. I think that’s really important, because everyone doesn’t respond the same way to the same type of constructive criticism.”

Dallas guard Tyasha Harris also spent the previous two seasons in Connecticut alongside Carrington, and she sees the similarities in Bueckers’ contagious 23-year-old energy. She said the former UConn star pesters the older players on the Wings like a younger sibling, but she can quickly unlock her a more stoic side on the court.

“She’s just goofy,” Harris said with a grin. “She’s like what Nai was to AT and DB, literally just coming in and joking, messing with you like a little sis. She’s funny, but she asks questions, and she’s serious about the game too. She comes in early and stays after everybody leaves, so she has a seriousness to her when it comes to her craft.”

Carrington and Harris helped the Sun to back-to-back appearances in the WNBA semifinals in 2023 and 2024, and like Bueckers, both also played for national championship contenders throughout their college careers. Amid the Wings’ 0-4 start to the regular season, Bueckers said it’s reassuring to have players surrounding her that can share in her antics while maintaining an urgency to succeed.

“Ty comes from a great culture at South Carolina and DiJonai comes from, Baylor, Stanford, so they’re used to winning, so this is all new for all of us,” Bueckers said. “We’re all just trying to learn together … we’re all super competitive and we all want to win. Ty’s been doing a great job because she’s been in the point guard role before in this league, so she’s been helping me out, just communicating with me. Nai is always communicating, especially defensively, about how we want to look like as a team, just telling me to stay aggressive. They’ve been very welcoming, very supportive, and they’ve been just helping me along the way.”

Barely two weeks into her professional career, Dallas coach Chris Koclanes said Bueckers’ dedication to building relationships with her teammates early already stands out as one of the most impressive things about her. Some of those connections have also translated quickly to on-court success, at least at the individual level: Bueckers has her best offensive rating when paired with Harris in the lineup and her second-best defensive rating when playing alongside Carrington.

“She wants to really be a great leader and is committing time into developing those skills to help this culture and her teammates as a rookie,” Koclanes said. “(You see) the time that she’s putting in to really figure out investing in her teammates and how everyone is different and how she can connect with everyone and find her ways to lead. Right now it’s not where she’s the vocal, rah-rah leader in front of everyone, but off to the side, one-on-one, I’m just impressed with how she’s been really intentional about developing those relationships with all 11 other players.”

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