Basketball star Paige Bueckers is not afraid to use the platform her fame has given her

Paige Bueckers has lived in a big spotlight since her senior year of high school. It, understandably, hasn’t always been easy, but she is pretty comfortable with it these days.

She also is comfortable using her fame as a platform, and she has done so again.

The 24-year-old grew up in Hopkins, Minn., about 10 miles southwest of downtown Minneapolis. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recent swarming of the Twin Cities, from raiding homes and business to the killings by ICE officers of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, hit especially close to home for her.

On Friday night, Bueckers will be in another big spotlight, in a city that has paid much attention to ICE’s actions. The Unrivaled basketball showcase will have a sellout crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena and another national TV audience watching from home.

“Innocent lives are being taken; innocent families are being broken apart,” Bueckers said Thursday amid the four touring teams’ practices at the Alan Horwitz Sixth Man Center. “People are afraid to send their children to school, people are afraid to go to work and provide for their family, people are afraid to go to the grocery store. What’s going on is not OK, and at some point — we feel like, and we hope and we pray, that there’s a change in direction in where this is heading.”

All of Unrivaled’s games this season except Friday’s are played in Medley, Fla., just outside Miami, with the season running from early January to early March. That has kept Bueckers away from participating in protests at home, which she said she would do if she could.

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“I’m very proud to be from Minnesota, and to see the community come together and show strength and unity and try to do everything possible to stay together through this really tough time,” she said. “That’s kind of what Minnesota is all about. So it’s tough, just being from there and not being able to go there and help and [have] feet on land, but you try to do everything from afar to support.”

In the meantime, Bueckers has put her money where her mouth is.

At the start of the week, she won Unrivaled’s $50,000 prize for having the best free-throw shooting percentage through the three-on-three league’s first five games of this season. Soon after that, she put the same sum on the table as a donation match to the Hopkins Strong Relief Fund.

The fund describes itself as “an ongoing drive to help feed Hopkins children and meet other urgent needs during this time of heightened stress and uncertainty in our community.”

» READ MORE: Here’s why Unrivaled picked Philadelphia to be the first stop on its nationwide tour

Bueckers, who also plays for the WNBA’s Dallas Wings, spoke resolutely about the importance of leveraging her fame.

“I feel like I’ve been very blessed and fortunate,” she said, “and God has given me this platform to speak out on things that are important to me and use my platform for good. And whether that be donations or just speaking out or standing up for what I think is right, I think that’s very important.”

She also was ready for a response she has seen often across society.

“As athletes, it can be so easy for people to say, ‘Just play your sport. Don’t worry about politics; don’t worry about all of life’s issues,’” Bueckers said. “But I think as somebody who’s in the entertainment business, and we get this platform, and we have this platform to say things, I think it’s important for us to use our voice and stand up for what we believe in.”

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Fellow superstar Breanna Stewart of Mist BC and the New York Liberty made a major statement Sunday when she held up a handwritten “ABOLISH ICE” sign during that day’s player introductions.

“All day yesterday, I was just disgusted from everything that you see on Instagram and in the news,” Stewart said afterward. “Everyone here [at Unrivaled] is feeling that way, one way or another. … We’re so fueled by hate right now instead of love, so I wanted to have a simple message of ‘ABOLISH ICE,’ which means having policies to uplift families and communities instead of fueling fear and violence.”

Another Minnesota native playing in Unrivaled, the Lunar Owls’ Rachel Banham, added her voice on Thursday.

“There’s a lot of things that need to, on a deeper level, be fixed, right?” said Banham, who also plays for the Chicago Sky. “I think the biggest thing that we can control — I mean, obviously, use your voice, continue to pray, continue to be there for people who need it. Lend a helping hand, if you can, because a lot of us have that privilege to be able to do that.”

She also acknowledged the scale of the current task.

“It’s going to be something that’s going to be [from] higher up, right?” Banham said of finding a solution. “It’s come from the top, government-wise.”

Bueckers did not say whether she’ll do something specific at Friday’s games. But she praised the WNBA’s tradition of player activism for “having always inspired me in that way.” She also spoke of her own history having “grown up, and I’ve seen, and I’ve been a part of, peaceful marches and protests and the community coming together just because of tragic events.”

She added that the Unrivaled player group has “talked about” doing something collectively, and “we want to do something to stand up for [it].”