What's next for Wings? After Paige Bueckers' playoff debut, Dallas must shore up supporting cast — SkimNews
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- Dallas Wings blew a 16-point lead in Game 3 against the Golden State Valkyries, losing on Gabby Williams' go-ahead jumper with just over a minute left in their first playoff series since 2023.
- Arike Ogunbowale set the WNBA playoff single-game scoring record with 45 points in Game 2 — including a corner-three that forced overtime — and added 30 in Game 3 before tweaking her groin in the fourth quarter.
- Paige Bueckers scored just 27 points on 27 shots across the final two games while battling patellar tendinitis in her right knee that had limited her since the World Cup.
- The Wings finished 27-17 as the No. 7 seed — a 17-win improvement over last season — but went just 7-15 against other playoff teams while dominating lottery opponents 20-2.
- Awak Kuier, a restricted free agent, led the WNBA in blocks per game (2.6) after the All-Star break and shot 39% from three, making her the top re-sign priority on a timeline that matches Bueckers and Fudd.
- Dallas holds the No. 9 and No. 13 picks in the upcoming draft, with wing help as the biggest need; Maryland's Oluchi Okananwa or Ole Miss' Talaysia Cooper are potential targets to balance a backcourt-heavy roster.
Why it matters: With roughly $2 million in cap space against an expected ~$7 million salary cap, the Wings have enough flexibility to re-sign Kuier and draft a wing, yet doing so would force a bridge year until Ogunbowale and Shepard's contracts expire — a trade-off that determines whether Bueckers gets a contending roster by 2028.
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