Paige Bueckers inks Unrivaled deal on eve of WNBA Draft and its worth more than 4-year rookie contract

Paige Bueckers isn’t waiting around.On the eve of the WNBA draft, the projected first overall pick inked a three-year deal with the 3-on-3 Unrivaled league, sources told The Post’s Madeline Kenney.And as ESPN reported first, the first-year salary of that contract will exceed the total value of Bueckers’ four-year WNBA contract.If indeed selected first by the Dallas Wings on Monday night — really, there’s no doubt — the 23-year-old would earn $78,831 in her first year of professional basketball, per the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement.In total, her rookie-scale deal would pay out $348,198 over four years.Unrivaled, the upstart 3-on-3 league that runs a 10-week season during the WNBA offseason, has no salary cap or predetermined salary scale — and plenty of money to spend.In its inaugural season, which wrapped in March, Unrivaled brought in over $27 million in revenue — more than double what investors had projected.And that was without Caitlin Clark, last year’s top WNBA draft pick.Unrivaled was reportedly offering Clark a Lionel Messi-like, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of deal, including partial league ownership and a stake in broadcast revenue.

But the Indiana Fever Star declined.Bueckers, who will inevitably be compared to Clark in every which way throughout her rookie season, already has the edge in at least one category — she did sign with Unrivaled.The league inked Bueckers to an NIL deal while she was still in college, though she didn’t play last season in order to finish out her campaign with UConn.She ended that run on the highest note possible, helping the Huskies win their first national title since 2016.

In the championship game, Bueckers tallied 17 points, six rebounds and three assists in UConn’s 82–59 rout of South Carolina....