There’s been a different aura around the team after trades, an active free agency period and drafting UConn star Paige Bueckers with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. Dallas ended the 2024 season in 11th place with a 9-31 record, but the team is new and loaded with talent with the 2025 regular season approaching. Barring injury, the Wings should find themselves in the middle of the pack at minimum. Executive vice president and general manager Curt Miller even noted that this team has been fun to watch throughout training camp.
“When the fans come out they are going to see a team that is first and foremost prepared, a team that is going to play hard, a team that is ready to compete and hungry [and] while everybody is fighting for their own role, it’s a togetherness,” he said. “The city is going to see how hard they are playing for each other and with each other.”
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Laying down the foundation
Dallas went 1-1 in its preseason, losing against the Las Vegas Aces, 112-78 and routing the Toyota Antelopes in a 119-52 win. Bueckers scored in double digits in each matchup, 10 points against the Aces and 15 points in her home debut against the Antelopes. She and seven-year veteran Arike Ogunbowale had a play that went viral during the matchup against the Antelopes.
Ogunbowale said postgame that during the first week of training camp and the first preseason game, she wasn’t ready for how open she was, but now she is used to it because the team has great players that are going to draw a lot of attention.
“I’m really excited about that, just for the rest of the year, easy buckets. Obviously, I will take my hard ones here and there, but that’s going to be limited because [of] players like Paige and [DiJonai Carrington]. Then our fours are passing backdoor passes great. So, they’re going to give me easy buckets and vice versa, so I’m excited about that,” she said.
The former Notre Dame star has had to shoulder most of the load offensively for the majority of her career in Dallas. This season, there is a chance to see a Wings team that can truly spread the floor. They have threats from all five positions.
On media day, though, head coach Chris Koclanes mentioned that there are two areas the team needs to improve on.
“Number one, we want to get more shots on goal, so that comes [with] empowering them and giving them freedom and creativity to go out there. [We] turned the ball over a ton against Vegas. In practice it’s had some portions that have been sloppy, so we’ve just got to find that balance,” Koclanes said.
“The other piece is our discipline defensively, so I am on them about establishing a physicality within the rules,” he added. “You saw we put Vegas on the line a bunch early with some undisciplined fouls on jump shooters. So those are two focus areas.”
The Wings had the worst defensive rating in 2024, so the only way to go is up. They are a new team that will have to find a way to do this quickly. Defense has been an ongoing issue for Dallas for many seasons.
The team is loaded with scorers and appears to be guard heavy. It may be little too early to gauge how they will fare defensively, but if they are able to lock up their opponents and be more disruptive, they will not have to rely solely on their offense to win games.
When Bueckers was asked what success would look like for her this season, she said success was the team being its best selves every single day.
“We’re all trying to grow, we’re all trying to get better,” she said. “There’s a lot of new here, so we’re just setting the foundation for what we want to look like in the future.”
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Lineup considerations
Dallas could end up having one of the best backcourt duos in Ogunbowale and Bueckers. Both of them can score at will. Bueckers is a true point guard the franchise has been missing since the departure of Skylar Diggins-Smith in 2020.
Last season, the Wings struggled, but Ogunbowale had a career year. She was the second-leading scorer in the WNBA averaging 22.2 points per game, while she led the league in steals, averaging just over two per game. She also had a career high in assists with 5.1 per game. With the addition of a player like Bueckers who has top-tier court vision and is getting to know how and where to find players, this backcourt could do some damage.
Relieving them would be Ty Harris and Aziaha James. Harris is nursing a left knee injury, but she has been a full participant in practice. The 5’10 guard played her best season last year with the Sun, averaging 10.5 points per game and shooting 42.5% from the field. While Harris was drafted by the Wings, she is coming back to a revamped organization.
Meanwhile, Miller said that he has enjoyed watching James throughout training camp.
There are several different pieces Dallas could use in the frontcourt. It begins with Teaira McCowan. Standing at 6’7, her presence down low will be huge. During media day, she mentioned that she has been working on her outside shooting.
“Shooting it off of the block, catching it off of the block, like facilitating up top. That is kind of like our offense, I don’t know if I should say that but oh well, ya’ll better get ready,” she said.
McCowan averaged 11.7 points and 8.1 rebounds per game. This season she could inch even closer to being a walking double-double. When a break is needed, she will be relieved by Myisha Hines-Allen. The 6’7 Kalani Brown was traded to the Phoenix Mercury, so there will be a little less size without her, but Hines-Allen is a champion with a wealth of knowledge and skill that will still make things difficult for opponents in the post.
There was a drop in points and usage for NaLyssa Smith in her final season with the Indiana Fever last year. She was drafted second overall by them in 2022. In 2023, she had her best season, averaging 15.5 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. However, in 2024 she averaged just 10.6 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. The scoring and rebounding ability she has shown early in her career will prove to be beneficial for Dallas this year.
Rounding out the potential starting five could be Carrington. The 5’11 guard/forward is coming off of a career year with the Connecticut Sun, averaging 12 points and five rebounds per game.
It will be Carrington and third-year forward Maddy Siegrist that will be shuffling in and out of the starting lineup. Siegrist played her way into the starting lineup in 2024 until she suffered a finger injury that caused her to miss 13 games; she was also the season four champion of Athletes Unlimited after finishing 12th in season three.
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And so it begins
The 15-game preseason schedule included four of them being televised nationally for the first time. One of those broadcast was the Dallas Wings first preseason game against the Aces that took place in Notre Dame.
The Wings announced an expanded distribution of local broadcasts on April 23 that will reach 6.3 million homes this season, welcomed news for fans that are not able to make it to the College Park Center in Arlington, TX. The preseason home game against the Antelopes was sold out and seats are limited for the home opener. There are going to be a lot of eyes on the Wings this year. Dallas begins its celebratory 10th season on May 16 against the Minnesota Lynx.
Want more team-by-team previews for the 2025 WNBA season? Read them all here!
