Olivia Miles on her scuffle with Paige Bueckers: ‘I don’t want to get punked because I’m a rookie’

Basketball fans sometimes complain that the sport isn’t the physical, burly game that they grew up watching in the 1980s and 1990s. No longer will you see someone clothesline their opponent to gain an advantage like Kevin McHale on Kurt Rambis during the 1984 NBA Finals.

For all the talk about the men’s league missing that extra dose of fight, the WNBA is the sport that represents that old-school nature that some fans constantly clamor for.

The Dallas Wings and Minnesota Lynx faced off for a third time this season on Sunday, and the two respective stars of the teams — Paige Bueckers of Dallas and Olivia Miles of Minnesota — battled on the court and got into a scuffle outside the lines and between the whistle, as well. Bueckers and Miles both identify as LGBTQ.

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Miles is compiling statistics and dominating games in a way that is unseen for most rookies in WNBA history. She also plays with an edge that gives her a competitive advantage, and it looks like Bueckers thought it crossed the line.

The argument didn’t go too far. It looked like it was standard trash-talking, and nothing worth making a big fuss about.

“I’m not trying to start anything,” Miles said in a video posted by The IX Sports’ Melissa Triebwasser. “I usually just kind of get triggered by something, and then I kind of don’t want to get punked out there just because I’m a rookie.

“So I try to hold my own. It’s not who I wanna be, but it’s just kind of the competitiveness in me. I just try to respond.”

What the banter did represent was the fire and heart that the women in the WNBA are playing with right now. There’s no doubt that these players want to win badly, and they bring an extra dose of adrenaline to the game that has been missing from their men’s counterparts for quite a while.

Both players are part of the new wave of women’s basketball players, making the WNBA one of the fastest-growing leagues in America. Premiere, queer, and here to stay.

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