DALLAS, TEXAS — Going into tonight’s draft the Wings strategy was to draft players that would compliment their young backcourt that features the leading scorer in 2020 Arike Ogunbowale, 2020 2nd overall pick Satou Sabally, and 2017 4th overall pick Allisha Gray. They stuck to the plan they implemented a few seasons ago when the franchise decided to move on from their previous stars and hit the reset button. Aggregate draft picks and rebuild with a younger group of players.Â
The Wings did just that selecting the draft’s top two players in Charli Collier and Awak Kuier with the 1st and 2nd overall picks. Collier finished her career as 1 out of 4 players in program history to finish a season averaging a points-rebound double-double, earned All-Big 12 honors in her sophomore and junior season, and finished this past season averaging 13 points and 8 rebounds. Kuier was deemed the next big thing as a prospect for some time now and has played professionally overseas in Italy and represented her country of Finland playing with the Finnish national team. Both of their top picks provide the Wings youthful options but their experience is another intangible that will be valuable to their cause.
With the 5th and 13th overall picks the Wings selected guards Chelsea Dungee & Dana Evans adding more firepower to their backcourt. Dungee averaged 19.8 points and converted on 40% of her shots for the Lady Razorbacks this past season and was named a 3rd team All American. Evans was the heart and soul for Louisville and played all 4 seasons as a key contributor.
The Wings have now added four top 2 picks to their roster and have followed the plan to perfection. The next question is how will new head coach Vickie Johnson put the pieces together to have a turnaround season after only winning 8 games last year. Based on how well Dallas has set her up for success, a turnaround is more likely and this team is equipped with the proper talent to make it happen.
The WNBA regular season will start Friday May 14th and the Wings will travel to LA to face the Sparks in their first game of the season in a star studded weekend of WNBA basketball.
