Paige Bueckers is one of many newcomers to Unrivaled and arguably the biggest star to join the league for its second season. Bueckers took the WNBA by storm, immediately adding an All-Star nod, an All-WNBA Second Team selection, and the Rookie of the Year award to her already stacked resume.
Bueckers and her young Breeze team also started the Unrivaled season off well with two wins and a big statement: They may be the youngest collection of players in the league, but they can still compete with more veteran clubs.
Playing in Unrivaled will prepare Bueckers for a second, hopefully more successful WNBA season with the Dallas Wings. Unrivaled’s fast-paced style guarantees that players leave Miami in great shape. Moreover, the full-court three-on-three style exposes players on both ends of the floor, which will allow Bueckers to grow as a defender, shotcreator, playmaker, and scorer.
Unrivaled could also pay off for Bueckers in another way—and much more literally. Bueckers is on track to win Unrivaled’s free-throw challenge and the $50,000 prize that comes with it.
Paige Bueckers leads the league in made free throws
For its second season, Unrivaled added a free-throw challenge, making players’ trips to the charity stripe much more interesting. Whoever finishes with the highest free-throw percentage through their first five games, takes home $50,000. Players must play in at least three of their team’s first five games and attempt at least six free throws to be eligible.
Four games into the season, it seems impossible for anyone to stop Paige Bueckers from taking home that prize money. Bueckers has gotten to the line more than any other player in the league, attempting eleven free throws. She made every single one of them.
The three-on-three format creates a lot of space, and that has worked to Bueckers’s advantage, allowing her to draw fouls as a driver or mid-range threat.
Seeing Bueckers excel at this challenge isn’t much of a surprise. Bueckers averaged 4.2 free-throw attempts per game in her first WNBA season and converted 88.8% of them. She finished sixteenth in attempts per game. Only nine of the players ranked ahead of her are competing in Unrivaled, and, out of those nine players, only Kelsey Plum averaged a better shooting percentage than Bueckers.
Bueckers still has some competition, though. Azurá Steven’s, Jordin Canada, and Veronica Burton are all 5-5 from the line. If Bueckers falters at the free-throw line against the Mist and any of them add one more shot and stay perfect, Bueckers could lose the prize money. Still, this is very much Bueckers’s challenge to lose.