WNBA Season Preview 2019: The Dallas Wings are building something new

The Dallas Wings season came into sharp focus when they finally signed off on a trade to send Liz Cambage to the Las Vegas Aces. What does this rebuilding season have in store for Dallas?

The Wings have yet to post a record above 0.500 in the three seasons since they moved to Dallas from Tulsa and that’s unlikely to change this season. After an ugly few months, last season’s leading scorer, Liz Cambage, was traded to the Las Vegas Aces. The only other returning player to average double-figures, Skylar Diggins-Smith, will miss at least part of the season after giving birth to her first child.

Dallas carried a roster into training camp that featured five rookies and no one with more than six seasons of WNBA experience. Factoring in the return they got for Cambage — a pair of 2020 draft picks and Moriah Jefferson and Isabelle Harrison, a pair of players entering their fourth seasons — makes clear that this is a team that is focused on the future.

For now, the centerpiece of that future is rookie Arike Ogunbowale, former Notre Dame star and the No. 5 pick in this year’s draft. Ogunbowale built a reputation with huge clutch performances in the NCAA Tournament, hitting a pair of game-winning buzzer-beaters on the way to winning the 2018 National Championship and turning in another incredible run as Notre Dame came up just short in the championship game this year.

The 5-foot-8 guard averaged 21.7 points per game last season and was a career 39 percent 3-point shooter over her four years in South Bend. Her jumper is her primary weapon and she’s extremely comfortable both in catch-and-shoot situations and creating space for herself to pull-up in the pick-and-roll.

Ogunbowale has been up and down in the Wings’ preseason games but it’s clear that she’s going to get plenty of opportunities to carry the offensive load and play through mistakes until Diggins-Smith returns. With her accuracy and lightning-quick release, Ogunbowale is going to put up a ton of points this season but developing her complementary skills and establishing chemistry with her other young teammates are going to be the most important goals for Dallas’ future.

Last season’s Wings team was defined by Cambage’s dominance in the post and Diggins-Smith’s creation on the perimeter. In looking at this new, remade roster with Ogunbowale and Diggins-Smith (eventually) driving things on the perimeter it’s easy to see the outlines of a deeper, more balanced attack.

Moriah Jefferson, the biggest piece Dallas got back in the Cambage trade, has seen her production decline over the past two seasons as she struggled with knee pain and then ultimately surgery to try and fix the problem. She played in just 16 games last season, breaking the 20-minute mark just once and hitting only 3-of-15 3-point attempts after making 39 percent of 108 attempts over her first two seasons. Jefferson was a star at UConn and if healthy she could be an ideal fill-in for Diggins-Smith until she returns and ultimately an offensive engine for the second-unit as the third guard in their rotation.

In addition to Ogunbowale, the Wings landed Megan Gustafson in the draft, a 6-foot-3 post player who won the Naismith National Player of the Year award after leading the nation in scoring last season for Iowa.

New head coach Brian Agler will have his work cut out for him, keeping this group competitive and helping the myriad promising young players developing into a symbiotic whole. But for a team that just had to move one of the league’s most dominant and productive players, the Wings are looking at a surprisingly interesting roster and a decidedly optimistic future.