Reid Ouse had never seen Paige Bueckers so frustrated.

In the short time he’d been her skills development coach, Ouse had known an 18-year-old who had mastered emotional regulation.

But that day, as she struggled with a concept he was teaching her in one of their first workouts together, the basketball phenom who would go on to win a national championship at UConn and become the Dallas Wings’ No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA draft wasn’t her calm and collected self.

Ouse started to list her accolades: USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year. The No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2020. A UConn pledge. A Slam magazine and Sports Illustrated cover girl.

“And you’re in the gym pissed off,” Ouse said, recounting the conversation he had with Bueckers. “What drives you?”

Bueckers’ lip started to quiver, but no tears welled in her eyes.

“She looked down at the floor. She looked back up at the ceiling,” said Ouse, who owns Twin Cities-based Catalyst Training. “Then she looked straight forward and looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘I want to be the greatest women’s basketball player of all time.’”

Five years later, Bueckers, 23, has done everything possible to get there, but she’s still just a rookie. It’s too soon to crown her this early into her WNBA career, but the Wings guard has shown promise, averaging 17.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 1.8 steals ahead of a highly anticipated, sold-out matchup with Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever on Friday night at American Airlines Center. She reached 200 points and 50 assists in 11 games, one fewer than Clark, who had been the fastest in WNBA history to achieve that mark.

Comparisons to Clark will inevitably follow Bueckers, especially this week. But Clark, 23 and popular with the masses, hasn’t arrived, either. Bueckers wants to be in the same conversation as Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Sheryl Swoopes — players who won multiple WNBA titles and Olympic gold medals.

Measuring Bueckers against another talented young athlete or reducing her to her statline would obscure the full picture of who she is and diminish the scale of her ambitions. But to family, friends and mentors, Bueckers is more than a great basketball player with big dreams. Confident yet humble, they say she’s as selfless and joyful in life as she is on the court.

“Something that I’ve always said about Paige is that she’s God-sent,” stepmother Moe Roberts, who helped raise Bueckers as her “bonus mother,” told the News.

“I truly mean that.”

Basketball prodigy

Bueckers’ achievements seem like fulfilled prophecies.

“Remember the name: Paige Bueckers. 6th grade, think Diana Taurasi,” Minnesota photojournalist Gary Knox posted in September 2013 on Twitter, now X, along with a photo of an 11-year-old Bueckers. “Best 6th grade G I’ve ever seen.”

It was the year Crissha Walton, a close friend of Bueckers’ AAU coach Tara Starks, became the young phenom’s photographer.

Walton remembers Starks telling her she had to see Bueckers play.

“I went to a game and I was blown away,” Walton told the News. “For her to be fifth grade, sixth grade — I mean she was doing stuff like she was in high school.”

Bueckers joined the varsity girls basketball team at Hopkins High School when she was in eighth grade. She ended her high school career as the all-time leader in points (2,877), assists (795) and steals (574).

The McDonald’s All-American won a state championship as a junior and led the team to the 2020 state title game, which was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In Minnesota, Paige is a legend,” Ouse said. “You go into Dick’s Sporting Goods and half of the athletic wear is Dallas Wings stuff or Paige Bueckers jerseys and T-shirts.”

Selfless play

As a UConn freshman in 2021, Bueckers won Naismith National Player of the Year, adding to an exhaustive list of individual accolades.

But Bueckers, praised for her high basketball IQ and efficiency, has long been team-oriented and pass-first.

“She was always a distributor,” Walton said. “The one thing that I can’t stand right now is how they compare her and Caitlin Clark. … Paige is a more all-around person. Caitlin is a scorer first. Then she distributes the ball.”

Once when Starks’ AAU team was down by one, Walton remembers the coach telling Bueckers to stop passing and instead take the shot.

“Paige came out of the huddle and was like, ‘You guys, I know Coach told me this, but if you’re open, please make the shot,’” Walton said.

Ouse said Bueckers’ natural instincts on the court served her well at UConn, a juggernaut with top recruits throughout the roster.

She’s had to be more assertive since joining the Wings, who were 4-12 as of Thursday and rebuilding around their new star. After missing four games under concussion protocol this season, she returned June 11 with a career-high 35 points in a 90-83 loss to the Phoenix Mercury.

Bueckers has scored at least 20 points in three of the Wings’ last four games and leads the team in points, assists and steals.

“If she needed to play more of a Caitlin Clark style … she could have done that at UConn. But she didn’t need to,” Ouse said. “That just shows the type of player and person that she is.”

Love and light

Her generosity is a character trait that’s obvious off the court as well. Ouse, who checks in with Bueckers periodically, remembers the time he received a mysterious package at his front door.

It contained a couple of pairs of Bose headphones with no note.

“I look on Paige’s Instagram and she’s got a Bose deal,” Ouse said. “I was like, ‘Hey, is this you?’ She just sent back a smiley face.”

Bueckers has been known to take care of the people in her life. While she has signed lucrative brand deals and landed magazine covers, the star understands her experience, particularly as a white athlete, doesn’t represent the reality of most WNBA players.

Since her days at UConn, where she included her teammates in NIL deals and used her influence to create pathways for minority content creators and advertisers, she’s worked to generate opportunities for others.

“When I met with the agency, I told them my values. I talked about giving back, using the partnerships to do something bigger than myself,” Bueckers said. “It’s not just something that’s transactional to where (sponsors are) just getting something out of me and I’m getting something out of them, but how can we get something out of trying to make this world a better place within our partnership?”