Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers joked that the meeting of one of her teammates with the Pope helped her team’s recent accomplishment. On Sunday, Nov. 23, the lottery for the 2026 WNBA Draft was held, and for the second time in a row, the Wings franchise was determined to be the team making the first overall selection next year.
During the lottery, Dallas third-year forward Maddy Siegrist represented the franchise, as seen throughout the presentation. This prompted Bueckers to post a couple of stories to her Instagram account, not only to celebrate her team’s accomplishment, but also to joke that Siegrist’s recent meeting with Pope Leo XIV may have given her the blessing to get the first pick for the squad.
This is because, in October of this year, Siegrist uploaded a carousel post to her Instagram, featuring her trip to Europe during the offseason. The first photo of the upload showed her with Pope Leo XIV, whom she met during her getaway. With this, Bueckers reposted both Siegrist and the Wings franchise’s uploads to her own stories with a supportive five-word caption.
“Shoutout Maddy and the Pope,” Bueckers captioned with an emoji.
As Bueckers calls on Siegrist’s meeting with Pope Leo XIV as a factor towards her team getting the first pick again, the Wings faithful are rejoicing over the fact that the squad got the pick out of a near-guaranteed 42% possibility heading into the lottery. Nevertheless, given the Wings’ cumulative records in the last two years, Dallas was at least assured of a top-three selection.
In the 2025 campaign, the Wings finished dead last in the Western Conference with a dismal 10-34 record and missed the postseason play. The lone bright spot of the year was that Bueckers was awarded the Rookie of the Year trophy, setting the stage for the future of the Wings franchise.
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Paige Bueckers Was The Dallas Wings’ First Overall Pick In 2025
As mentioned above, the Dallas Wings will be selecting the first overall pick in the WNBA Draft next year.
In 2025, their first overall pick was Paige Bueckers, who was coming off a successful five-year tenure with coach Geno Auriemma‘s UConn Huskies. In her last year, she won her lone national championship in the 2025 NCAA tournament.
Read More: Geno Auriemma Makes His Feelings Clear About Paige Bueckers And Dallas Wings’ New Head Coach
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