ARLINGTON — Dallas belongs to Paige Bueckers.
That was made clear after general manager Curt Miller and the Wings front office selected the UConn standout No. 1 overall in the 2025 WNBA Draft.
Now, the question is whether backcourt star Arike Ogunbowale will be part of Dallas’ future as the franchise rebuilds back into a playoff team.
The Wings will miss the postseason for the second consecutive year and are approaching a fork in the road: go all-in on the youth movement with a roster that already includes four rookies and four players with just two years of WNBA service or re-tool the roster in an upcoming highly-anticipated 2026 free agency period that’ll have nearly every veteran — including Dallas’ Ogunbowale, DiJonai Carrington and Myisha Hines-Allen — as unrestricted free agents.
“Yeah, look, it is a big step. The best teams have all the experience and the most talent on it, but this a talented team, but they’re very young. And then it’s kind of them growing together,” Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello said while speaking of Dallas’ current situation before Monday’s defeat.
Brondello’s 2022 Liberty team draws some comparisons to the current Wings squad: a new head coach (Brondello & Chris Koclanes) leading a No. 1 overall pick (Bueckers & Sabrina Ionescu) on roster mixed with veterans and development-ready young players.
After praising some of Dallas young players, Brondello said “So I think it’s just them building around Paige — obviously that’s the way to go, but they’re making sure what’s the best system for the players that they do have.”
The answer was much clearer a few weeks ago.
With Ogunbowale in the midst of her worst WNBA campaign and her first All-Star Game snub since 2021, a departure from Dallas seemed reasonable — especially with her three-year deal set to expire at the end of the season.
She’s recording career-lows in points per game (16.1), field-goal attempts (14.5), field-goal percentage (36.9) and three-point percentage (32.4). This is coming off a 2024 WNBA season when she averaged 22.2 points per game, on 19.2 shots while shooting 38.3% from the field and 34.6% from downtown. She was named to the All-WNBA Second Team and selected to her fourth consecutive All-Star Game.
Meanwhile, Bueckers got accustomed to WNBA life and quickly thrust herself into the All-Star Game while jockeying with Washington Mystics youngsters Sonia Cintron and Kiki Iriafen for Rookie of the Year.
Buckers supplanted Ogunbowale as Dallas’ All-Star representative while averaging 18.2 points and 5.5 assists while shooting 45.5% from the field and 33.8% from deep.
But Ogunbowale’s recent stretch has many in Dallas believing the tandem could work.
Following a rocky start to the season, Ogunbowale is playing her best basketball of the 2025 campaign. In the last four games, she is averaging 18.5 points and 6.0 assists per game while shooting 51.1% from the field. That includes Monday night’s performance that played a part in the Liberty, who played miserably most of the night, holding a postgame team meeting for over 30 minutes: 20 points and 14 assists on 46.7% shooting.
Bueckers shined against the Liberty too, recording 20 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals. And in the stretch of Ogunbowale’s best play of the season, the former Husky didn’t falter: 17 points, 5.3 assists, 3.7 rebounds and 2.7 steals.
“It’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. And I think anyone can tell you, in any league, you go through the growing pains of having to just figure it out, and it’s all kind of part of the process, and so to see how they continue to fight and play in every game,” Ionescu said. “Obviously, they’re a super talented team, and they’re just young, and it takes a little while to figure it out, but I think everyone has the utmost confidence that they have the right pieces and the right players here to be able to do that at some point.”
Even with a winter free agency frenzy looming, hitting on another draft pick could do wonders for Miller’s front office.
WNBA lottery odds are determined by the cumulative records of non-playoff teams from the previous two WNBA seasons. Entering Wednesday, the Wings own the worst two-year record (17-50) and the best percentage to land the No. 1 overall pick. Exact draft odds with a new-five team lottery for 2026 are currently unknown.
Those odds, though, will put the Wings in play for UCLA’s Lauren Betts, who is the top collegiate center and presumptive No. 1 pick on mock drafts. A union with Bueckers and Betts could set up a solidified frontcourt-backcourt tandem for the foreseeable future.
Then there’s a flurry of top guards to choose from — Bueckers’ former UConn teammate Azzi Fudd, TCU’s Olivia Miles, South Carolina’s Ta’Niya Latson and LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson.
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