The Dallas Wings are in a funk. After a fantastic start to the season, punctuated by a six-game win streak in July, the team has come crashing down to Earth. The good vibes and cautious optimism from their early success have all but dissipated, as Dallas has dropped seven of its last 10 games. Since the All-Star break, the Wings’ only victories are against Toronto and Connecticut, two teams in contention for the No. 1 overall pick.
Injuries have undoubtedly played a big part in this swoon. Azzi Fudd
has missed the last four games with knee soreness, while Jessica Shepard has been out for most of the last three games with an ankle injury. Those are massive losses for Dallas, but they were playing poor basketball before these players hit the shelf.
The Wings have been very good at handling their business against bad teams but playoff contenders have had their way with them. Dallas is 6-14 against other top-eight WNBA opponents. The 14-1 record against lottery teams is great, but a real contender has to hold their own against the best competition, too.
This dichotomy is a microcosm for the Dallas Wings franchise. The team is good, which is far more than we’ve been able to say about them since 2023. For large stretches of the season, they’ve been fun to watch and are mostly competitive night in and night out. But we all know what the ceiling here is: a first-round exit. If they somehow advance, things will certainly go no further.
And that might be okay if we could look at the organization with faith that this is only the beginning of Dallas’ rise to championship contention. After all, it isn’t exactly reasonable to assume a team fresh off of back-to-back No. 1 picks will be ready to compete for a title so soon. Wouldn’t a fun, solid team flaming out in the first round be an acceptable outcome at this point in the Paige Bueckers era?
The answer to that question would be “yes” if there were any belief in the people responsible for building that team. Sadly, it’s clear that both Curt Miller and Greg Bibb are decidedly not up to the task. Bibb has always been a disaster, the architect of a laughingstock organization that, for most of its history, has been defined by star players desperately maneuvering to play elsewhere. The level of organizational incompetence with Bibb at the helm was astounding, and it would take thousands of words to list all his mistakes here.
That’s why Miller was hired to steer the ship in the right direction. Miller, a respected women’s basketball lifer, boasted tons of experience winning at a high level, both as a coach and executive. He was revered for his talent evaluation, basketball mind, and ability to foster relationships. With Miller taking over general manager duties, Bibb was freed to focus on the business side of the sport.
Nine days after Miller was officially hired, the Wings won the 2025 WNBA Draft lottery and the right to select Paige Bueckers. Within less than two weeks, Miller’s job got exponentially easier. The organization secured a generational superstar, and all Miller had to do was be patient, savvy, and opportunistic. If he did his job properly and worked the margins, a contender would certainly blossom around Bueckers within a few years.
Instead, Miller has botched almost every major roster decision since arriving in Dallas. Rather than taking a patient, measured approach, he has tried to rush the process every step of the way. At times, he’s corrected his errors only to turn around and make bigger ones. Let’s take a look at all the mistakes he’s made since assuming the GM role in Dallas.
December 6th, 2024 – Miller leaves Carla Leite unprotected in the 2024 WNBA Expansion Draft
This was the first major decision Miller made after winning the Paige Bueckers sweepstakes, and it was completely and totally indefensible. I wrote extensively about this when it happened. Leite was an awesome prospect, and that Wings roster was atrocious. The 2024 first-rounder should have been the easiest, most no-brainer protection of anyone the organization held rights to. Instead, Miller opted to let her go for reasons we will never know. He’s never been asked about this and has never answered for it. Leite came over in 2025 and had a solid rookie season in Golden State before being selected in another expansion draft by the Portland Fire a year later. Of course, Leite is currently in the midst of a breakout season for Portland, showcasing skills that would fit beautifully with Bueckers. This was the first major red flag of the Miller era.
December 23rd, 2024 – Chris Koclanes is named head coach of the Dallas Wings
The decision to entrust Koclanes, a relatively unknown assistant at USC, with building the foundation of the Bueckers era was the foremost example of Miller’s tendency to value personal relationships above the best personnel. Koclanes had worked with Miller before as an assistant on his staff in Connecticut, and it was clear that the two have remained close friends. In a vacuum, there is nothing wrong with giving an opportunity to an unknown candidate with whom you share a connection. But Koclanes was clearly not suited for this role, looking completely overmatched during his brief tenure. While the new Golden State and Portland front offices nailed their coaching hires with Natalie Nakase and Alex Sarama, Miller put himself behind the 8-ball with this farce.
February 2nd, 2025 – Multi-team, multi-player trade
Satou Sabally, Kalani Brown, Sevgi Uzun, and Jacy Sheldon were traded in a multi-team deal that nets DiJonai Carrington, Ty Harris, NaLyssa Smith, and pick No. 12 in the 2025 WNBA Draft. This ended up being two Wings trades combined into one massive transaction. The original Sabally deal was going to land Dallas Ty Harris, NaLyssa Smith, and the eighth overall pick in 2025. Miller then decided to move down four spots in the draft and send Sheldon to Connecticut to secure DiJonai Carrington. The Wings received mediocre value for Sabally, whose core eligibility gave her sway over where she ended up. But the real disaster here was the Carrington component of the deal. Carrington was an awful fit with the 2025 roster and Koclanes, and by moving from pick No. 8 to pick No. 12 in the draft, Dallas ended up with Aziaha James over Sarah Ashlee Barker or Saniya Rivers. Barker especially looked like a far superior player before tearing her ACL a few weeks ago. Instead of drafting her, Dallas got half a season of horrible basketball from Carrington while losing Jacy Sheldon, who was just traded for an unprotected 2028 first-round pick.
June 14th, 2025 – Dallas trades a 2026 second-round pick and a 2027 third-round pick to Seattle for Li Yueru
I hated this trade at the time because Dallas wasn’t good and didn’t need to move any draft assets. Yueru has had some decent games for the Wings but overall isn’t a serious rotation player. And that 2026 “meaningless” second-rounder? It was traded to Golden State on 2026 draft night for the rights to Flau’jae Johnson.
June 30th 2025 – NaLyssa Smith is traded to Las Vegas for a 2027 first-round pick; Kaila Charles released
Getting a 2027 first for Smith is likely the best move Miller has made from a process standpoint. I loved this trade, and it gave me hope for the future. However, Smith has excelled in Vegas with A’ja Wilson and Becky Hammon, starting and winning a title in 2025. While that wouldn’t have happened in Dallas, the late first the Wings received looks like a pretty cheap sacrifice for what Smith has become. In the same move, Miller let Kaila Charles go, who flashed positive impact in her limited time in Dallas. Golden State picked her up, and she’s become a crucial rotation piece for a championship contender.
August 3rd, 2025 – DiJonai Carrington is traded to Minnesota for Diamond Miller, Karlie Samuelson, and a 2027 second-round pick
Dallas got horrible value for Carrington after she floundered in Dallas. Miller quickly became a negative asset after looking awful in Dallas, and the Wings had to dump her in the offseason. This is mostly just a nothing trade for a player you gave up a lot to get.
April 4th, 2026 – Dallas signs Arike Ogunbowale, Alanna Smith, and Jessica Shepard to multi-year, $1 million+ contracts
Miller chose to go nuts in free agency after the new collective bargaining agreement was agreed to, re-signing Ogunbowale and poaching Smith and Shepard from Minnesota. To secure Smith and Shepard’s services, Miller had to overpay and offer multiple years (three and two, respectively). And while Shepard is enjoying a career season, I have serious concerns about how a non-shooting big who can’t play defense will fare in the playoffs. Smith, meanwhile, has been mostly awful in Dallas (though she has started to turn things around). That contract has disaster potential if it isn’t there already. And the decision to bring back Ogunbowale for two years is another questionable call, especially given who they drafted days later. With these three deals, Miller is basically cementing the team’s core, barring trades. As we can see from this year, it isn’t good enough.
April 13th, 2026 – Azzi Fudd is selected first overall in the 2026 WNBA Draft
This one is going to get me in trouble, but I don’t care. It’s the biggest mistake of the Miller era, especially given what else he’s done to build around Bueckers and Fudd. Fudd was, at best, the third-best prospect in the draft. I had Awa Fam, Olivia Miles, and Kiki Rice ranked ahead of her. Though Fudd’s rookie season has been very good, Miles is already an MVP candidate. Fam looks like a future All-Star big at age 20, one who fits perfectly with Bueckers. Rice has been incredible when healthy, too. And Fudd has been exactly what I expected her to be: a high-level role player who can space the floor and play good team defense. That’s a nice player to have, but at No. 1 overall? Over the players you passed on? It can’t happen. Forget the fact that Fudd tore her ACL (twice), MCL, and meniscus all in the same knee before playing a single pro game. Forget the fact that she’s missed four straight games and counting with soreness in that very same knee.
The selection of Fudd launched Miller into a desperate win-now pivot, one that’s worked just well enough to render their 2027 picks functionally worthless. Am I supposed to rely on Chloe Kitts or Oluchi Okananwa to save this team? How are the Wings going to acquire the star and/or two-way wing they need with zero high draft picks and no cap space? That’s the box Miller put himself in with the Fudd selection. It was a bad decision, one fueled in part by Fudd’s off-court magnetism and popularity. Don’t believe me? Look at Miller flexing about the Wings’ influx of Instagram followers after the draft. Look at Bibb championing the team’s new Geico sponsorship that Fudd secured for them as soon as she was picked. Even if these two genuinely believed Fudd was the best prospect in the draft, they were egregiously wrong. That’s a fireable offense in and of itself when you pick first overall.
Throughout all of these team-building mistakes, it’s become clear that Curt Miller does not care about the margins. And worse, he’s probably lost his talent-evaluation fastball. To compensate, he’s relying on people and players he has relationships with, as he seems to think this makes them more valuable.
It’s why he doesn’t care about international scouting. It’s why he’s treated the new developmental roster spots like a joke. It’s why he went hard after Carrington, and it’s part of the reason he drafted Fudd. It’s why he re-signed Ogunbowale. And it’s why he left Leite unprotected in the expansion draft. At every opportunity, Miller has bet on the person he’s already familiar with over superior alternatives. This has even extended to his coaching hires. Jose Fernandez is another Rolodex move, carrying connections with both Miller and UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who is tied to the Wings organization through Bueckers and Fudd. The jury is out on him.
If Dallas is to recover from these mistakes and shape a title contender around Bueckers, Miller and Bibb need to go. Bibb’s ownership stake makes things tricky, but chairman Bill Cameron would be very wise to simply clean house. These two cannot oversee another offseason, especially one that will likely make or break the franchise. A complete front office reset is desperately needed, or else Wings fans can start preparing to watch Paige Bueckers don a different uniform in her prime.
