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Fans Delight in Curt Miller's Return to Paige Bueckers Sweepstakes Amid Wings Hire

The Paige Bueckers Sweepstakes for the 2025 WNBA Draft just received a fascinating new wrinkle.

Grant Young

Sep 11, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; LA Sparks coach Curt Miller at press conference at the Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Sep 11, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; LA Sparks coach Curt Miller at press conference at the Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

On Friday, the Dallas Wings announced their hiring of Curt Miller as their new Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager.

While this is a big addition for Dallas, it may come as surprise to many that Miller wasn't added as a head coach, given that he spent the last two seasons as the head coach of the Los Angeles Sparks before getting fired in September. However, before Los Angeles, Miller served as both General Manager and Head Coach for the Connecticut Sun for seven seasons.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Miller joining the Dallas Wings is the implications it has on the 2025 WNBA Draft.

As it currently stands, Miller's former team, the Los Angeles Sparks, have a 44.2% chance to land the No. 1 overall pick (according to Tankathon) when the WNBA Draft Lottery takes place on November 17.

Given that the No. 1 pick of the 2025 WNBA Draft is expected to be UConn star guard Paige Bueckers, Miller would have been in prime position to land Bueckers if he'd remained with the Sparks.

The Dallas Wings have a 27.6% chance of getting the draft's No. 1 pick. However, as part of Dallas' trade of Marina Mabrey to the Chicago Sky in February 2023, the Wings now have the option to conduct a first-round pick swap with Chicago in 2025. Of course, the Wings will certainly exercise this option if the Sky (who have a 17.8% chance of winning the lottery's No. 1 pick) receive a better pick than them.

Therefore, Dallas' chances of getting the No. 1 pick are actually 45.4%, which is slightly over 1% better than that of Los Angeles.

Which means Curt Miller's chances of landing Bueckers are now even better than they were when he was leading the Sparks — which fans are finding ironic on social media.

"I dont want her there, but if La fired Curt for tanking for Paige just for him to still get Paige, imma laugh😭," X user @JN21666 wrote.

X user @cc22report added, "Wouldn’t it be ironic

If, after being fired by the Sparks who clearly wanted him to tank for Paige

Dallas ended up getting the top pick

And he still was able to get Paige?

This is now the reality I want to live in".

This storyline of Miller getting Bueckers has just become the most fascinating aspect of next weekend's 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery.

Published
Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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