The Wings have struggled since the 2025 season tipped off, but Bueckers has continued improving and integrating herself into the fabric of the team. Megdal first discussed the Wings’ central question for this season:
“If the season ended today, Dallas would not be in the playoffs,” Megdal said. “… but that’s not really what this year is about for Dallas. What this year is about for Dallas is figuring out what they have in Paige Bueckers, and what fits around Paige Bueckers. [They have] a lot of rookies, we’ve talked about it on the show, you have some people on a rookie scale deal, Maddy Siegrist, she’ll be back soon. Do Paige and Arike Ogunbowale work together or not? I don’t think there’s a bigger question to be asked. If you ask people around the league, I don’t think there’s a bigger question on people’s minds. Dallas is certainly doing everything they can to figure it out. Out of all their two-person lineups, that one has the most minutes, 168 of them. The early returns were not great. They are a net rating of -3.1 so far this season. That’s not playoff caliber. Now, there’s a lot of noise in that surrounded by who surrounds them, but you also just needed this sense of all right, what can they be together? And in the last three games, we’ve seen some “together” that makes a lot of sense. Over the last three, Paige: 17 a game, 50% of her shots, 38.5% of her threes going down … 5.3 assists, 2.7 steals, only 1.3 turnovers. Arike, similarly efficient in her last four now: 20, 18, 16 and 20 points, hitting about half her shots. Monday night, 14 assists [in] a win over New York, who was missing Breanna Stewart, but that’s a win over the New York Liberty.”
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Later on, he touched on the salary cap math of Dallas’ situation, and the questions general manager Curt Miller will eventually have to tackle:
“For Curt Miller in year one, so much of this is about figuring out how to make this all work,” Megdal explained. “It’s one of the luxuries, Paige signs a rookie scale deal. I mean, she signed for three years with a fourth year option, gives the Wings time, even though they have to figure out off the court too, because you gotta keep Paige happy. You also, at the same time, need to figure out how to put Paige in a position to win. Some real good indications here that the Wings have begun to do that. They’re not going to have to make the playoffs for this to be a successful season. They just need to figure out what the game plan looks like around Paige Bueckers. Could it be Arike? Last few games, … arguably the first evidence, that that could be. They don’t have to, she’ll be a free agent, like 80% of the league give or take, but it’ll be interesting to see whether she changes the thinking, the conventional wisdom thinking around this.”
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Tune in to hear more from Paige and Arike after Monday’s game, and more from Megdal on the situation in Dallas. To stay up to date with every episode of the podcast, subscribe on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. And catch up on all our WNBA coverage here.
Also, hear from Golden State beat reporter Matthew Walter and KPIX’s Zena Keita on the first edition of Valkyries Report. They discuss how the Valkyries are adjusting to playing without All-Star forward Kayla Thornton, who recently suffered a season-ending right knee injury.
