Jessica Shepard has been shot out of a Dallas Wings-branded cannon to start her first season with the team.
Through 10 games, Shepard is averaging 13.5 points, 11.4 rebounds and 5.8 assists as the Wings’ starting four on most nights. If those numbers hold up this year, 2026 will be the best year of Shepard’s career, by a mile and a half.
Shepard came into this year averaging 6.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game across five seasons with the Minnesota Lynx. She was seen as a nice, complementary
free agent pickup this offseason — someone who could come in and be a workable upgrade for a front line that was porous and at times downright ineffective a year ago. A good piece, and one that hopefully would fit into what the Wings are trying to do this year.
Wipe off your lenses, Wings fans, that is not Nneka Ogwumike or Alyssa Thomas wearing No. 32 for Dallas, but Shepard’s game sure resembles those do-it-all forwards as we approach the quarter pole of the 2026 campaign. In fact, on Friday, in the Wings’ 104-96 win at the Los Angeles Sparks, the longtime role player Shepard completely outplayed the former MVP Ogwumike, who still averages 15 points and 7.7 rebounds for the Sparks to start her 15th WNBA season.
Ogwumike was no slouch for the Sparks in the loss, finishing with 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting and 10 boards, but Shepard had another one of her eye-popping performances, which seem to have come out of nowhere to start the year, piling up 22 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and two steals in the win for the Wings. Shepard also joined Thomas as one of only two players in WNBA history to start a season averaging 10 or more points, 10 or more rebounds and five or more assists per game through 10 games.
In the short sample of 10 games this year, Shepard is rubbing elbows with the likes of A’ja Wilson (second), Kelsey Plum (third) and Aliyah Boston (fifth), sitting at sixth in PER (player efficiency rating) in the WNBA. These were not her peers in previous years.
She came into this year with one triple-double to her name in her first five years in the league. After eight games this year, she had added two more, and these weren’t the 12-11-10 kind of triple-double, either. She recorded 18 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds in the Wings’ 99-89 win at the Chicago Sky on May 20 and followed that up with one of the stat-stuffingest triple-doubles in WNBA history just three games later, a 22-20-10 behemoth as Dallas announced its arrival atop WNBA power rankings everywhere with a 95-87 win over the Las Vegas Aces.
Shepard is now one of just eight players in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in her career. Three of them put her in the same rarified air as bona fide stat getters like Candace Parker and Caitlin Clark.
“I think her experience being able to handle the ball and get it off the glass, that’s big,” Wings head coach Jose Fernandez said after the win at Chicago. “Being able to play off the block, get into zoom actions, [dribble-hand-off] actions — the spacing helps her, but it’s her that’s translating it onto the floor.”
Fernandez’ offense keeps the ball moving at a clip Wings fans have not been accustomed to in recent years. Having multiple scoring options and great ball movement to go along with it means that there were always going to be opportunities for someone like Shepard to have a big night here and there, but this seems like something more than that. Shepard is not just cleaning up the offensive glass or finishing off easy looks inside with the benefit of great passing around her.
No, it appears there was an untapped vein of offensive prowess about Shepard’s game all along that the Wings are happy to exploit as the team races to one of its best starts in franchise history.
Her apparent on-court connection with Paige Bueckers doesn’t hurt either. Bueckers has been playing more point guard for the Wings this season, letting her scoring chances develop as the game progresses in favor of making the right play every time down the floor. More often than not, the correct play in front of Bueckers has included finding a cutting Shepard on her way to the basket.
Whatever’s happening, it all adds up to a historic start to the year for Shepard as part of one of the Wings’ best in team history. She may have come into the year as a relative unknown, but Shepard is making a name for herself with each big night and clutch moment along the way.
