Of the 13 rookies averaging at least 6.5 ppg, Dallas has four of them - Paige Bueckers, Luisa Geiselsöder, Aziaha James, and JJ Quinerly. Geiselsöder was a second round pick (in 2020), while Quinerly was a 2025 third round pick (and is the only third round pick to appear in over 25 games so far this year).
The Carrington and Smith acquisitions were not great for the Wings, but the franchise quickly rectified those decisions. And Dallas trading for Li Yueru and Diamond Miller gives the team younger players who have shown flashes of potential.
Honestly, the biggest issue is finding a way for Bueckers and Ogunbowale to just not co-exist but to thrive together. Last year, the Caitlin Clark-Kelsey Mitchell took time to develop, but after the Olympic break, the two were incredible together. Arike's injury has prevented that from happening (remember, Paige played the NC game less than six weeks before the opening game of the WNBA season, which is not a lot of time to develop chemistry).
And the offseason focus needs to be what to do with Arike. She is an absolute dynamic scorer with incredible crossover moves. But her shooting efficiency has plagued her, only shooting at or above 40.0 percent from the floor twice in seven seasons. After a slight post-ASG bump in shooting in July, she crashed down in August before being out with injury. And for someone who shoots over 86 percent from the line -- and who can get there by blowing past defenders -- she does not incorporate getting to the line into her repertoire as much as she could or should, often settling for ill-advised three-point attempts (she has shot over 35 percent in three of seven seasons from three, but not since 2022).
