Five straight games with 20+ points on 50% or better shooting, and the dominant conversation in mainstream WNBA coverage is still some version of “watch this space.” The sportsbooks are not watching this space. BetMGM has 85% of its MVP handle on Paige Bueckers (their largest MVP liability on the board), and DraftKings has already logged a $1,000 bet at 20-1 odds. Someone did the math. The media hasn’t caught up.
The reason the media hasn’t caught up is structural — and it’s worth naming. A’ja Wilson earned her status through years of proof, multiple titles, and the accumulated weight of repetition. The league’s canon builds slowly and conservatively, through seasons not months, through titles not streaks. Bueckers is doing this in her second year, on a Wings team that won 10 games last season, and the ecosystem is visibly uncomfortable with having a clear answer before the traditional proof points pile up. The resistance isn’t irrational. It’s just not tracking what’s happening right now.
What’s happening right now: Dallas is 16-8 with a five-game winning streak. Bueckers is averaging 20.7 points and 6.0 assists on 51.6% from the field. And the only other player in the last five seasons to reel off five straight 20-point games at 50%+ shooting is Wilson — who did it six times. That’s the company. Two names, one active conversation.
The WNBA’s own account made the comparison explicit after the Toronto game:
https://twitter.com/WNBA/status/2073920900777291847
The league placed Bueckers in the same frame as NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. That’s not an accident. That’s the organization acknowledging, without quite saying it, what the numbers have been saying for weeks. The overcautious brake that got Caitlin Clark wrong is now being applied to Bueckers.
I follow the Mercury closely enough that I’ve watched Wilson operate from close range: the footwork, the finishing, the way she makes hard angles look routine. I know what WNBA dominance actually looks like. Wilson is still the standard. She has titles, MVPs, and the kind of legacy that doesn’t evaporate in a summer. You can make that argument in September.
Right now, in July 2026, Bueckers is the best player in this league. The 23-year record she tied barely made a ripple in national coverage. The shooting streak barely made a ripple. The sportsbooks noticed. The Wings’ record noticed. The league’s own social team noticed.
The media will catch up eventually. They always do. They’ll write the coronation piece in October, if Dallas makes a deep run, and they’ll frame it as an inevitable conclusion that everyone saw coming.
The sportsbooks already wrote it in June.
