It’s great how little you have to think about Paige Bueckers. This isn’t the same as not caring about her. The scads of cheers she gets during player intros, even on the road, are proof that she’s cared about very much. She just happens to be the sort of player whose competence speaks for itself, whose game demands no further tinkering or accommodation. Play her with a big lineup or a small one. Play her at the one, two, or three. Play her off the ball, or on it. Play her in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse. Her versatility lets the Dallas Wings be whatever they want to be.
What they’ve been so far this year is one of the WNBA's most potent offenses. With playmakers at every spot, these Wings are moving, cutting, sharing the ball, and scoring from everywhere, well enough to rank second in the league in offensive rating. On Wednesday night in Chicago, they put up 99 points on a respectable Sky defense and notched their third win of the season. Five games in, they’re already in good position to beat last year’s win total of 10.
Conspiracy theories abounded when the Wings bypassed the bigs in this year's draft and used the first overall pick on Azzi Fudd, a much-needed source of shooting and strength in the backcourt, and who, yes, has said in the past that she’s dating Bueckers. The easy explanation is that they’d already made the frontcourt the focus of their free agency when they signed Alanna Smith and Jessica Shepard, both formerly of the Minnesota Lynx. Smith hasn’t shaken her habit of picking up awful fouls, and she’s looked a little out of whack since breaking her nose in the preseason.
Shepard, though, has been a revelation. Bueckers might be the point guard, but Shepard works as a legit offensive hub for this team, able to start plays in transition just as easily as she runs dribble handoffs in the halfcourt. Wings head coach Jose Fernandez credited Shepard’s experience on other teams for giving her those reps. “Her experience, especially internationally and in Europe, being able to handle the ball and get it off the glass and start things and not having to outlet to a point guard, that’s big,” he said after Wednesday’s game. The contract she signed this offseason gave her maybe the funniest pay raise ever—she’s making a million dollars this year, up from $78,000 at the end of her rookie deal last year—and she’s earning every penny. The first triple-double of the WNBA season, just as everyone expected, belonged to her. She finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds, 12 assists and only one turnover against the Sky.
Shepard looked comfortable taking it right to the rim herself in transition, and when she’s doing that, there’s basically no shot the Wings can’t get. Bueckers went 1-for-5 in the first quarter, then finished the game 11-of-19 on her signature diet of dribble pullups. You could almost hear the entire arena groan in the third quarter when Rachel Banham went under a screen from Shepard and gave Fudd her easiest shot of the night from three.
Dallas’s assist rate of 72.5 percent on the season is also second only to the Liberty, and 28 of their 36 field goals were assisted Wednesday night. But in those moments when the game’s about a bucket, it’s nice to have a little something extra.
Through all the roster turnover, the Wings have retained their ancient weapon: late-game Arike Ogunbowale bullshit. Skylar Diggins criticized her team’s defensive effort, but still tipped her cap to the Wings. “Shit, the shots they were making at the end were incredible,” she said after the Sky's 99-89 loss. It was a mild surprise that Dallas brought back the oft-maddening guard on a multi-year deal this offseason; the start of the Bueckers era seemed like the natural place to end things with Ogunbowale. But when the Sky made it a one-possession game with a little over two minutes left in the fourth quarter, there was only one way this game could go. At least the bullshit was assisted this time. As Bueckers brought the ball down the floor, she drew an extra defender and found a wide-open Ogunbowale for three. On their next possession, Shepard was there to set a screen and hand the ball off, and Ogunbowale was ready to break Chicago’s hearts again. In the Wings offense, everyone gets their turn.
