September 8, 2024
With Sabally and Siegrist back, there’s still hope for the Wings
By Arie Graham
With two key pieces back on the roster Dallas continues to fight for a spot in the playoffs
There are now just five games left in the WNBA regular season, and the Dallas Wings are still in the running for the 8th and final playoff spot. However, they are no longer in the position to control their own destiny. In order to secure the final seed, they will have to both win out and count on losses from the Chicago Sky and the Atlanta Dream who are currently tied for the 8th seed. Dallas is 9-25 and are 11th in the standings.
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This season has been a tumultuous one in Dallas. The Wings went from being semifinalists in 2023 to sitting on the bottom half of the standings in 2024, due to significant losses from injury. After the Olympic break, with players returning to the roster like Satou Sabally and Maddy Siegrist, it was expected that the team still had a good chance to fight for a playoff spot. The Wings, however, have still not been able to find consistency with a full roster, as they have lost six of their last nine games.
Return of the Unicorn
Sabally came out of the Olympic break firing on all cylinders. In her first five games back, she put up historic numbers. In a five game span, she averaged 20.2 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.8 assist per game. She was also shooting 53.6 percent from beyond the arc.
She has helped take some pressure off of the team’s leading scorer Arike Ogunbowale, who has had to carry the team on her back as the injured recovered. In the game against the Washington Mystics on Sept. 3, Ogunbowale exited the game briefly in the second quarter. When asked why in the postgame, head coach Latricia Trammell said the reason for the brief exit was due to her shoulder.
“A lot of people do not realize that she is not 100 percent,” Trammell said.
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The growth of Siegrist in year two
With all of the injuries that Dallas had to deal with early on, Siegrist was given the chance to step up and show how much her game has grown from her rookie year to her second season.
Prior to her finger injury in Minnesota on June 17, she was averaging just over 14 points and four rebounds per game. She was shooting 52.3 from the field. Her performance was just what Dallas needed until Sabally’s return.
But since she has returned to the roster post-injury, she has been given limited minutes and is still battling through the pain. Prior to the game against the Atlanta Dream on Sept. 6, Trammell said that Siegrist may need another surgery once the season is over.
“When she was playing at the beginning, one, she wasn’t injured; two, we didn’t have Satou and (Natasha) Howard back. [Siegrist] has been invaluable to what we were trying to do, and she is going to be a big part of this moving forward,” Trammell said.
In the meantime, Dallas will have to find ways to win these final games of the season. Their journey continues on Sept. 8 against the Chicago Sky.
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Written by Arie Graham
Arie Graham joined 'The Next' in May 2021 as the beat writer for the Dallas Wings.
