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For 3 many years we’ve lined many superb basketball characters, however some stand above the remaining—not solely due to their on-court expertise (although these are at all times related), however due to how they influenced and proceed to affect basketball tradition, and thus influenced SLAM. In the meantime, SLAM has additionally modified these gamers’ lives in numerous methods, as we’ve documented their careers with basic covers, legendary photographs, superb tales, compelling movies and extra.
We compiled a gaggle of people (programming word: 30 entries, not 30 folks whole) who imply one thing particular to SLAM and to our viewers. Learn the full list here and order your copy of SLAM 248, the place this record was initially revealed, here.
Paige Bueckers’ title is synonymous with greatness.
Gatorade Participant of the Yr, AP Participant of the Yr, USBWA Participant of the Yr, Naismith Trophy winner, Wood Award winner, Finest Feminine School Athlete ESPY Award winner—the record may fill this whole web page.
Her title is one which the world has develop into nicely accustomed to listening to, from her ninth grade phenom days all through to the Insanity of March.
SLAM has been part of Bueckers’ journey for the reason that summer season earlier than her senior 12 months, when SLAM highschool videographers and photographers would pull as much as her AAU tournaments and be amazed by what they had been witnessing. It continued within the fall of her senior 12 months, when the Minnesota phenom acquired her first function in our iconic pages.
Not lengthy after that, we acquired to see who Paige was not solely as a hooper however as an individual, by way of WSLAM’s first season of “All Eyes On Us”—a digital video sequence that follows a highschool workforce by way of a full season—the place Bueckers and the Hopkins Royals had been on a mission to deliver dwelling this system’s first-ever nationwide title. By way of that sequence, the world acquired to see what our employees noticed each time we sat to talk along with her for an interview: a famous person.
She was a hooper with no concern of going for powerful buckets who had ruthless handles that dropped defenders virtually each sport and a passing type so easy that her coaches in contrast her to Magic Johnson.
But additionally, an individual with an aura so particular that she lifted up everybody round her, each on and off the courtroom. We had been along with her when she copped a pair of Jordan XI Breds (a “should have” for sneakerheads, as she put it), and we had been there when she jokingly messed along with her teammates on the bus to away video games.
Then the pandemic shut the world down simply as Paige and her teammates had been within the locker room making ready for his or her state championship sport, and we witnessed the heartbreak of a possible historic season reduce quick. Within the “All Eyes On Us” season 1 finale, Bueckers was uncooked and emotional about what that season meant to her and her teammates.
As Paige made historical past in Minnesota that season, she made historical past for SLAM, too, turning into the primary highschool woman to be featured on our cowl (SLAM 226). It looks like I used to be in that health club simply yesterday, watching the long run famous person step onto the set sporting “Pinnacle” Air Jordan VIs. That day, everybody knew they had been within the presence of greatness.
Her freshman 12 months at UConn put the world on discover as soon as once more, when she gained nearly each award potential in NCAA ladies’s hoops, all whereas making an attempt to recruit her finest buddy and the highest prospect within the class of 2021, Azzi Fudd. As soon as Azzi locked in her dedication, we linked up with the backcourt duo and shot one other historic cowl, for SLAM 235, the “New World Situation,” a themed situation about the way in which the hoops world was altering in actual time.
Whereas Bueckers has cemented herself in historical past with all she’s achieved on the NCAA stage, her story is simply starting. Paige is a competitor at coronary heart, and in what could possibly be her last season in Storrs, she has her sights set on bringing dwelling a nationwide championship. Bueckers will likely be eligible for the WNBA draft this spring, and whether or not she decides to go this 12 months or use her final 12 months of faculty eligibility, she’ll in the end develop into the way forward for the W.
Paige has meant a lot to SLAM due to what we’ve constructed collectively over time. From iconic covers to months of capturing her last season in highschool, Paige is a legend within the SLAM halls—and I imply that fairly actually. Her cowl picture takes up a full wall inside SLAM HQ. She was the beginning of SLAM’s growth into women grassroots basketball, and we’ve gotten to witness her journey from the beginning. Whether or not this 12 months or subsequent, Paige will hear her title known as on the WNBA Draft, and as she walks throughout that stage, you higher consider we’ll already be cooking up an thrilling strategy to doc the subsequent chapter of her journey.
Photograph by Johnnie Izquierdo.
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