Wings outlast Sparks, but will it cost them Paige Bueckers?
There was a battle for the bottom of the league Sunday afternoon in Arlington, Texas as the 6-22 Dallas Wings hosted the 6-23 Los Angeles Sparks. The loser would find themselves in last place of the WNBA while improving their odds of getting the first pick of next year's draft and possibly adding sure-to-be first overall selection UConn star Paige Bueckers to their franchise's future. The 2025 WNBA Draft may seem far away, but when you're having the seasons both these teams are having it's never too early to look to the future and start to dream and gameplan for what may come.
With both teams constantly changing lineups throughout their respective lost seasons it was surprising that Sunday afternoon's game turned out to be so high scoring as the Wings edged out a dramatic 113-110 victory. Anyone looking for a defensive battle Sunday would have had to wait for the Sunday night Patriots/Commanders NFL pre-season game as both the Sparks and Wings allowed thirty-plus point quarters with Dallas even throwing up forty in the final stanza to complete a nineteen-point comeback in front of a jubilant home crowd. Dearica Hamby's three-point attempt at the buzzer after a frenzied final ten seconds almost sent the game into overtime but like twenty-two times before the missed shot left the Sparks with a loss.
Sparks continue to struggle
Los Angeles is now riding a seven-game losing streak and have yet to win since the post-Olympic return to action. On the plus side of the losing streak for the Sparks, five of the seven losses have been of an average of 5.4 points to go along with a sixteen-point loss to the Aces in Las Vegas and a dreadful 103-68 blowout loss to the Liberty that opened the second half of the season for LA.
One of the upsides of lost seasons for teams is that they get to see what they have on the roster without having to worry about postseason seeding or keeping players fresh enough for the playoffs. Teams like the Sparks can just let the horses run wild and possibly get a glimpse for what the future may hold. For Los Angeles at this point in the season that means seeing what rookie Rickea Jackson can do.
With the potential promise of a dynamic rookie duo of Cameron Brink and Jackson, a la Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky, extinguished with Brink's torn ACL in June, it's been Jackson's time to turn it loose. The rookie out of Tennessee had her highest scoring game of the season Sunday putting up twenty-five points on 9 of 15 shooting including going 6 for 8 from behind the arc. Since the post-Olympic return to play, Jackson has been a model of consistency putting up double figures in scoring in each of the six games this month on 53 percent shooting over that stretch.
With Jackson, team MVP Dearica Hamby (21 points Sunday) and newly extended Azura Stevens (15 points Sunday) as a core the future looks far better than the present for the Sparks.
Wings' 2024 season
As for Dallas, the second half of the season has been all about renewal. The Wings are 1-3 since the break with Sunday's game as their lone victory, but like the Sparks now is all about the future. Like LA, Dallas has also been competitive for the most part as only one loss, a twenty-point loss to the Liberty as part of a back-to-back with New York, was their only bad loss as they were able to hang tough with both the Liberty in the second game of that back-to-back and played Connecticut tough in a high scoring ten-point loss.
The biggest thing for the Wings in the second half of the season has been and will be the continued return to play of forward Satou Sabally. The former Oregon standout shined in the Olympics for Germany, her first action since injuring her shoulder in February during FIBA qualifying play. Since suiting up for Dallas this month Sabally is showing why the team and Dallas fans have so highly anticipated her return. In her first four games of the season Sabally is averaging a solid line of 18 points/6.7 boards/5.3 assists and 2 blocks. Sabally remained steady in Sunday's win finishing with nineteen points and seven rebounds but was outshined by teammates Natasha Howard's thirty-point explosion and All-Star Arike Ogunbowale's thirty-three-point output.
Both Dallas and Los Angeles face tough schedules over the final few weeks of the regular season. Wins will be extremely hard to come by as collectively they only have three games remaining against teams currently outside of the WNBA playoff picture. Both teams, along with Atlanta and Washington, will play hard until the end, but reality is reality. One of these teams will most likely finish last in the league. One of these teams will most likely have the number one pick in the draft. One of these teams will most likely be welcoming Paige Bueckers to town.