Paige Bueckers Made Sure She Showed The Respect To GOAT Sheryl Swoopes That Caitlin Clark Fans Did Not

Paige Bueckers is next up as the player that will be a transcending and dynamic figure in the WNBA.

The UConn senior is already the No. 1 overall projected pick in the 2025 WNBA draft and, just for the record, she has nothing but great things to say about WNBA legend and a leading candidate for GOAT Sheryl Swoopes.

We have a Paige Bueckers sighting 👀#WNBALLSTAR pic.twitter.com/uAFrxknhOr

— Sara Jane Gamelli (@SaraJGamelli) July 21, 2024

Swoopes Becomes Enemy Of Team CC

Swoopes put herself on the wrong side of “The Caitlin Clark Effect” when in attempting to bring a dose of reality to the Clark explosion while the leading candidate for WNBA Rookie of the Year was still at Iowa and pursuing Kelsey Plum’s all-time NCAA scoring mark.

Swoopes and former NBA shooter turned podcaster Gilbert Arenas appeared on “Gil’s Arena” for a chat about the new phenom in women’s basketball.

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Swoopes assumed that Caitlin Clark had more college eligibility than she did and expressed that in a rant about why Clark breaking the NCAA scoring record wasn’t legit. 

Swoopes, obviously sick and tired of what many past and present players considered overhype, went in on CC.

“If you’re going to break a record to me, if it’s legitimate you have to break that record in the same amount of time that the player set it,” Swoopes said.  

“If Kelsey Plum broke that record in four years, well Caitlin should have broken that record in four years. But because there’s a COVID year, then there’s another year, so she’s already had an extra year to break that record, so is it truly a broken record?”  

Arenas chimed in: “You think exactly how I am” 

Swooped kept going in: 

“I don’t think (it’s a true broken record) but that will go in the record book as Caitlin Clark is the all-time …whatever it is I don’t know what the number is…but that’s the way it will be, but I don’t think there should be.”

Gilbert Arenas continued to co-sign Swoopes. 

“And the sad part is that record will never be broken because there’ll never be another five or six years you can play in college sports. It should be a whole separate entity.” .  

Swoopes and Gilbert Had The Facts Wrong

Swoopes and Gil were totally wrong on the eligibility of Clark personally, although their points are valid about the years of eligibility and how that affects the authenticity of the record. 

College is four years and any records should be broken within four years to be valid.

If they stopped there, it might not have been seen as a session of hating on Clark’s success. But when Swoopes implied that Clark’s scoring is unimpressive because she basically doesn’t let anyone else shoot the ball — and greatly exaggerated Clark’s field goal attempts per game to validate her point — she kind of set herself up for the retaliation that occurred. 

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Swoopes got pounded on social media for her mistake. Clark’s boyfriend even tried to throw smoke at the living legend. 

Connor McCaffery tweeted:

“Just imagine doing an interview and being this misinformed 😂😂😂😂😂 I don’t even understand what she’s trying to say.”

Paige Bueckers Respects The GOAT

So while Swoopes isn’t a favorite of Team CC, there’s another pony-tailed assassin who many consider better than Clark, including her UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who has nothing but respect for legends, and she played Swoopes very close at WNBA All-Star festivities. 

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With Flau’Jae Johnson on her right and the three-time WNBA MVP Swoopes on her left, Bueckers was in the company of past and future greatness. 

When the camera cut to the crowd, UConn’s fifth-year senior quickly deflected the attention from herself and praised the basketball royalty sitting next to her. 

Bueckers made it clear that she’s not down with Teams CC and definitely not here for any tension or slander against Swoopes.

She made it her business to respect the legend and is making it clear that her game will do the talking and not media controlled or divisive narratives or the imaginary beefs that surround Clark. 

As far as Johnson and Bueckers are concerned, they might be the two hottest ballers coming out of the draft, but they seem to get along a lot better than Clark and Reese.

They even hopped on IG Live together, where someone referred to them as Tupac and Eminem. (This wouldn’t be America if someone didn’t make a racial comparison) in a moment that has nothing to do with it. 

Expect next year’s rookie class to be highly heralded as well, but with much less of the external drama that the Reese-Clark rivalry has created. 

Bueckers is a better player than Clark in the eyes of many basketball fans and aficionados. If not for her injury she probably would have contended with Clark for player of the year awards and NIL deals.

Paige Beuckers Easier To Like Than Caitlin Clark

Bueckers does a lot less complaining and whining and flopping than Clark, and she will probably hit better than 30 percent of her threes next season. 

Swoopes may have lost some cool points with her anti-Clark comments, but she hasn’t lost any respect when it comes to the GOATS of the WNBA who helped build the league and sustain it early on. 

Bueckers and Clark can only pray to have the career that Swoopes had, and regardless of how you personally feel about Swoopes you must respect the originators. 

Paige understands that well.