The basketball team from Dallas was awful last season, so they ended up with the number one overall pick last year. Luckily, there was a generational player available, and they drafted an immediate star who lived up to the considerable hype. But it wasn’t enough, and they had another awful year, and are hopefully going to be able to add another star this year in a pretty strong draft. It’s an exciting time for the Dallas Wings. Wait, who did you think I was talking about?
Let’s take a look at the
moves Curt Miller has made so far.
Li Yueru and Grace Berger were both offered one-year tenders, and both signed. Yueru coming back is no surprise — she seemed to fit in well last year after being traded to the Wings, who are thin on bigs. I’m surprised at Grace Berger coming back, but to my understanding, these are non-guaranteed deals, so I’m not sure she makes it to the season.
Bringing back a couple of members of the supporting cast from last year is fine, but what else? How about they bring back a player from a couple of years ago? The Wings did that too, signing Awak Kuier, who took a break from the WNBA and developed nicely in the Euroleague.
What’s that? You want a bigger name? The Wings got you, re-signing multi-time All-Star and longtime face of the team Arike Ogunbowale on a multi-year deal.
You’re still not happy? You want them to actually sign someone who wasn’t part of the 10 win team from last year? You’re very hard to please, but fine. The Wings also agreed to a two-year deal with Arike’s college teammate Jessica Shepard from the Minnesota Lynx, who personally helped me win a fantasy championship last year and is therefore one of my favorite players.
And then, between the time I wrote this and it was published, they struck on another big from the Lynx, Alanna Smith, who agreed to a three-year max deal. She’s Australian, which means that like former Maverick Josh Green, she’s seen kangaroos in the wild.
There was also a trade, sending Diamond Miller and her guaranteed contract to the Sun for Rayah Mitchell and her non-guaranteed one.
As if that’s not enough excitement, Monday the Wings will make the number one selection in the WNBA draft. It should be fun! Let’s just hope they get it right.
