{"id":795319,"date":"2024-01-29T15:09:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T20:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=795319"},"modified":"2024-01-29T15:09:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T20:09:08","slug":"paige-bueckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/the-magazine\/30-players-who-defined-slam\/paige-bueckers\/","title":{"rendered":"THE 30 PLAYERS WHO DEFINED SLAM’S 30 YEARS: Paige Bueckers\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For three decades we’ve covered many amazing basketball characters, but some stand above the rest\u2014not only because of their on-court skills (though those are always relevant), but because of how they influenced and continue to influence basketball culture, and thus influenced SLAM. Meanwhile, SLAM has also changed those players’ lives in various ways, as we’ve documented their careers with classic covers, legendary photos, amazing stories, compelling videos and more. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We compiled a group of individuals (programming note: 30 entries, not 30 people total) who mean something special to SLAM and to our audience. Read the full list here<\/a><\/strong> and order your copy of SLAM 248, where this list was originally published, here.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paige Bueckers\u2019 name is synonymous with greatness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gatorade Player of the Year, AP Player of the Year, USBWA Player of the Year, Naismith Trophy winner, Wooden Award winner, Best Female College Athlete ESPY Award winner\u2014the list could fill this entire page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her name is one that the world has become well accustomed to hearing, from her ninth grade phenom days all the way through to the Madness of March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SLAM has been a part of Bueckers\u2019 journey since the summer before her senior year, when SLAM high school videographers and photographers would pull up to her AAU tournaments and be amazed by what they were witnessing. It continued in the fall of her senior year, when the Minnesota phenom got her first feature in our iconic pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long after that, we got to see who Paige was not only as a hooper but as a person, through WSLAM\u2019s first season of \u201cAll Eyes On Us\u201d\u2014a digital video series that follows a high school team through a full season\u2014where Bueckers and the Hopkins Royals were on a mission to bring home the program\u2019s first-ever national title. Through that series, the world got to see what our staff saw every time we sat to speak with her for an interview: a superstar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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