Paige Bueckers is many things, but she is not Caitlin Clark.

Bueckers, the immensely talented No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft by the Dallas Wings, has consistently been one of the best players on any court she steps onto. She’s a shoo-in for the 2025 Rookie of the Year award, following Caitlin Clark’s win the year prior.

Yet her short time in the WNBA hasn’t reached the same cultural magnitude as Clark’s, despite comparable stats, accolades, and court presence. The reason may have less to do with basketball and more to do with America’s racial imagination.

Greatness is never measured by skill alone. It’s measured by storylines, hero worship, and adversity. Without a Black woman adversary, Bueckers is simply an exceptional player in a league full of exceptional players, but she’s never going to be Clark.

Let’s be clear: the WNBA didn’t need a superstar. The league already had Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson, Alyssa Thomas, Breanna Stewart, and Sabrina Ionescu. What it didn’t have was a story.

Back in the late 1970s, the NBA wasn’t just struggling; it was on the brink of collapse. The rivalry between Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird didn’t just capture the American zeitgeist — it brought the country’s racial and cultural ethos onto the hardwood, transforming basketball into a battlefield for identity. To Black fans, the Showtime Lakers embodied the progression of the Black Power movement, freedom, and unshackled afros. To white fans, the Boston Celtics represented blue-collar grit, bootstrap myths, and hard-nosed discipline. This wasn’t just about sports or talent. There had always been great Black players, just as there had been legendary white ones — Jerry West, Bob Pettit, John Stockton. But none had Bird’s narrative: a white hero with an equally gifted Black rival. Their rivalry didn’t just push the NBA into relevance; it helped save the league.

Clark’s meteoric rise wasn’t just about her deep shooting range or scoring ability. It was fueled by her media-constructed rivalry with LSU’s Angel Reese and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley-led squad — unapologetically Black, outspoken, and rooted in a tradition of swagger and excellence in women’s basketball. The tension between Clark’s perceived humility and “clean” style versus her Black opponents’ confidence and “attitude” played into an age-old American trope: the virtuous white woman under threat from unruly Blackness. For every narrative of Clark’s small-town purity and “aww-shucks” driveway heroism, there was Reese’s portrayal as raw and street-tough — like a character plucked from those tired Hollywood scripts where Black women teach white women how to dance or find their edge.

Clark has become a stand-in for white womanhood itself, cast as the one in need of saving. If Black women are the train, she’s the woman tied to the tracks. Clark didn’t ask to be the hero, but the American media machine chose her, and it all began with a moment of trash talk during the 2023 national championship game, when LSU defeated Iowa for its first national title. Despite narratives pushed by pundits (and “cornball brothers” like Robert Griffin III), Clark and Reese don’t hate each other — they’ve been competing against one another for years.

Clark isn’t just a player anymore; she’s a cultural symbol, a mascot for nostalgia-driven traditionalists, a hero of a bygone America where the milkman still delivered to your door. The machine has transformed her into a dual figure: both underdog and savior, a white woman thriving in a game dominated by Black women.

But let’s be clear: Black women are not accessories to whiteness. They aren’t natural enemies of white women, nor are they guides into Black culture. They are not props for an underdog story or a yardstick for someone else’s greatness.

Bueckers, who is white, likable, and immensely skilled, may never achieve Clark’s level of superstardom. Perhaps that’s because of her upbringing with a Black stepmother or her public acknowledgment of her privilege. She doesn’t need saving; she’s saving herself. But without a media narrative built on a Black adversary, Bueckers will remain a phenomenal athlete rather than a national storyline — and that’s no fault of her own.

Black women are not the “dark side” of white purity. They aren’t uncultured versions of civility or here to serve as cultural translators. They aren’t here to teach white women line dances or how to Dougie. They are not, and have never been, sidekicks in someone else’s hero tale. Long before Clark, there were extraordinary Black women dominating the court — and Juju Watkins is already on her way to carrying that torch. But those women didn’t have a story. And in America, stories — especially racial ones — are what drive fandom, headlines, and history.