Fever, Wings primed for battle of the No. 1 picks as Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston face Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd

It’s receiving the full preferential treatment in the league’s most highly acclaimed TV partner’s prime spot after the 30th season officially tips off with a quieter bang on Friday night.

And it begins what will be a lengthy stretch of the four top talents facing off as Indiana and Dallas, potentially, climb their way out of the standings basement they occupied in the last decade.

Boston signed an extension with Indiana, keeping her in town through 2029 on a supermax contract allowed under the new EPIC provision. The Fever picked up Clark’s fourth-year option and will almost assuredly re-sign her to a deal under EPIC next offseason since she’s already earned all-WNBA honors. Nothing has indicated she has interest in going elsewhere. With Bueckers’ Wings contract running through 2027, and a 2028 option, the focus on this matchup will carry on for at least three more years.

Teams winning consecutive No. 1 picks in the WNBA lottery is rare, and two doing it back-to-back is even more so. There have been four seasons in which the four most recent consecutive No. 1 picks were in the building. But only in one of those seasons did all four players see action.

In 2003, the now-defunct Cleveland Rockers had LaToya Thomas (2003) and Ann Wauters (2000), while Seattle rostered back-to-back picks Lauren Jackson (2001) and Sue Bird (2002). Wauters sat out that season for rest while also playing overseas schedules, the standard that only recently changed for most players. None of these four have played overseas; instead, Bueckers and Boston play in Unrivaled.

The Aces’ No. 1 pick trio of Jackie Young (2019), A’ja Wilson (2018) and Kelsey Plum (2017) created three seasons of top four picks in the same arena, but New York’s Sabrina Ionescu (2020) missed all but three games of her 2020 rookie year with an ankle injury. In 2019, the Aces-Storm series would have featured five consecutive No. 1 picks, except 2016 selection Breanna Stewart missed the entire season with an Achilles injury.

That leaves 2018 Las Vegas and Seattle in a similar format to Dallas and Indiana. The Aces had Wilson and Plum, while Seattle built with Stewart and Jewell Loyd (2014). They played three games, and in the first two, Plum came off the bench.

Those rosters are faint blueprints of the progression Indiana and Dallas are trying to undertake. The Storm won championships in 2018 and 2020 — had it not been for Stewart’s injury, potentially a two- or three-peat would’ve been possible. The Aces won their third in four years with a sweep of the Phoenix Mercury in October.

That domination overshadowed what it took for last year’s Aces to reach those heights, including a five-game series that required overtime to extinguish the resilient Fever.

“We want to take another step, certainly,” White said. “Understand that it’s a process. Understand that it’s a new group. Understand that there’s different circumstances that we have. But I think we have an opportunity to do some really special things.”

To call it a rivalry is vastly premature. The Bueckers-led Wings have only played Clark’s Fever once, a 102-83 Fever win in one of the 13 games Clark was available while dealing with soft tissue injuries.

It may never become one. That, too, is more for fans to decide. Yet, as some of the youngest superstars in the league concentrated on two teams, their paths will begin to go through each other, as with those previous organizations.

The 2020 Storm’s Finals sweep of the Aces was what the latter needed to build a dynasty. Though Ionescu never played Las Vegas as a rookie, the Aces-Liberty matchups became must-watch once Stewart and free agents joined New York’s foundational piece. Those two rosters, with those four No. 1 picks, are the top contenders again heading into the season.

That is, as long as the Wings live up to their end of the bargain and become the contender many expect after making the best overall moves in the offseason — at least according to a consensus from general managers. Which is why four consecutive top picks taking the floor isn’t top of mind for a team taking one game, one practice, one day at a time.

“It's cool that you get to see it, and I think it's cool for us that you get to see it here,” White said. “But, you know for us, it's a game. We got to be ready to go for the Dallas Wings.”