Dallas Wings Coach Makes Admission After Win Without Paige Bueckers
Dallas Wings Coach Makes Admission After Win Without Paige Bueckers originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
The Dallas Wings logged their fifth win of the season on Saturday night after taking down the Washington Mystics in a home game at College Park Center, 79-71. It was also Dallas' fourth victory in their last six games, following a 1-11 start to the season.
Advertisement
Perhaps more significantly, the Wings were able to secure their first win of the campaign with Paige Bueckers out of the picture. Dallas lost all four of their previous games with Bueckers out injured, but they finally got a win on Saturday after the No. 1 overall pick was forced to sit out due to a knee issue.
After the game, head coach Chris Koclanes opened up about his team's recent run, and how Bueckers' absence impacted the Mystics game. The rookie shot-caller also admitted that at this point in the season, he feels that the Wings have not fully established their identity.
"We're looking for consistency from night to night," Koclanes said. "... When Paige is out there, it's Paige and Arike (Ogunbowale), and then everyone around them in terms of understanding their roles. But we're at our best when all five are hunting within their roles.
"... I'm searching stuff. We are searching as a team for what our identity is because it changes from night to night."
Dallas Wings guards Paige Bueckers (5) and Arike Ogunbowale (24) and head coach Chris Koclanes.Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images
Koclanes continued to emphasize how Bueckers and veteran Ogunbowale stand as the centerpiece of this squad, as well as how he expects the rest of the squad to play their respective roles around their two stars.
Advertisement
"Paige and Arike are constants, and that's all defenses are going to focus on," he continued, "So I keep talking about our competitive depth and how that is our strength, and you've seen it. We've just got to win in all sorts of different ways.
"Tonight we had to just muck this game up, and didn't look the prettiest, but you've got to do what you've got to do to win this league. So we're going to continue to grow together."
The good news for Koclanes and his team is that they still have a lot of time to figure things out this season. The Wings don't exactly have to live up to very high expectations this year as they look to build for the future.
Advertisement
Nevertheless, they appear to have turned a corner of late, and it will be very interesting to see if they are able to keep this up the rest of the way.
Related: Dallas Wings' First Win Without Paige Bueckers Draws the WNBA's Attention
Related: Dallas Wings Make Decision After Unwanted Paige Bueckers Situation
Related: Former Fever Player Reveals Striking Similarity Between Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 29, 2025, where it first appeared.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
9 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Thunder general manager Sam Presti lauds 'homegrown' NBA championship team
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Sam Presti put Oklahoma City's first NBA championship team together in an unconventional way. The Thunder general manager didn't make any splashy trades or break the bank in free agency. He didn't replace the coach with a bigger name during the rebuild to get the team over the top. He relied on good-old-fashioned internal development, with a few strategic additions sprinkled in. It worked. Somehow, Oklahoma City claimed the title with the same coach and many of the same players who won 24 games four years ago. 'We have people from Canada, Serbia, the West Coast, the East Coast, middle America, France, Australia, that all come together for a collective goal,' Presti said. 'There's compassion on the team. There's a cowboy toughness, a self-reliance that comes from being homegrown, and an essential sense of goodness.' Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the regular-season and Finals MVP, but there were plenty of challenges. Jalen Williams, a first-time All-Star, was a force in the playoffs despite playing the entire postseason with a ligament tear in his right wrist that will require surgery. Chet Holmgren missed 50 games this season with a pelvic injury. The Thunder were among the league's leaders in games lost to injury. Presti said the key was that the players saw challenges as opportunities. Many took advantage of their additional playing time and were better prepared to contribute during the title run. 'If you want to be the exception, you have to be willing to be exceptional,' Presti said. 'That point was basically aimed at the fact that we have to be the exception to the rule. … The quest to be exceptional is met with having to do a lot of things that are unorthodox, and I felt like the team did that in a lot of ways and we were rewarded for it.' Coach Mark Daigneault, like the team, is an unconventional success story. He coached the team's G-League affiliate before taking over the Thunder. After winning fewer than 25 games his first two years as Thunder head coach, he's now a champion. Presti said Daigneault has improved over the years, and his approach to learning helped the young team stay focused. He said the team never got overwhelmed by circumstances, like losing Game 1 in both the Western Conference semifinals against Denver and the NBA Finals against Indiana, or falling apart in Game 6 at Indiana. 'I think the team saw those as, 'Hey, this is just the next thing in front of us that we have to accomplish to achieve the goals of being a great team,' and I don't think anyone was inconvenienced or saw that as a catastrophic event,' Presti said. 'It's like, 'Well, I guess this is part of the thing we have to get better at,' and they met the moment.' Two additions were guard Alex Caruso, who was acquired in a trade with Chicago last summer, and center Isaiah Hartenstein, who was added through free agency. Those veterans played key roles in the playoffs and helped Presti get named Executive of the Year. Presti said the Thunder won't change much — he believes consistency brought them here. The team is positioned to do well going forward with all the key players from the youngest team to win a title since 1977 signed through at least next season. But Presti said there is work ahead. He noted that no team has repeated since Golden State in 2017 and 2018. 'We'll have to put our head down,' he said. 'We're not entitled to anything. If you hear us approaching things differently than we have in the past, I'd be a little bit surprised by that. But we're going to have to fight some human nature there, but I think we have the people and the characters and the program to fight for that. But we're going to have to stack days in order to stack seasons.' ___ AP NBA:
New York Times
14 minutes ago
- New York Times
Georgia closes NIL collective as revenue sharing begins. New plan could become norm
Georgia is ending its collective, but the Bulldogs are partnering with an outside organization to form a new outlet that will focus on name, image and likeness deals for football and other players. The move is in advance of the House settlement going into effect Tuesday. The settlement allows schools to directly pay athletes, starting with $20.5 million for all athletes, but any outside NIL deals worth more than $600 have to be approved by a clearinghouse, which is run by the Deloitte accounting firm. Advertisement Georgia's outside NIL deals will now be done through Learfield, which has worked with Georgia's athletic department, and many others, on licensing and marketing deals. Learfield is also set to work with Ohio State, in a similar arrangement announced several weeks ago. Learfield is expected to hire a staff of around five people specifically for Georgia's NIL deals. 'This approach is about creating a standardized process and capitalizing on the NIL momentum at Georgia as the recent House settlement ruling goes into effect,' Learfield president Cole Gahagan said in a statement. 'By consolidating all NIL efforts together, we're establishing a full-service platform that makes it easier for brands to engage, for fans to support, and for student-athletes to maximize their potential through impactful storytelling and strategic partnerships.' Georgia's collective, the Classic City Collective, was formed several years ago and had been raising money to directly pay players while also helping negotiate NIL deals. Last year the collective paid players an average of $1.1 million per month, multiple program sources briefed on the operations of Georgia's collective previously told The Athletic. That figure, about $13.2 million for the season, is roughly in line with what Georgia will pay football players in revenue sharing. Most schools are paying football players 75 percent of the revenue sharing budget. (Schools can count new scholarships in revenue sharing, so it's 75 percent of $18 million, which is $13.5 million.) But there were NIL deals for several players that were outside the collective, and the payments for players are expected to only increase, especially among top-tier programs. So Georgia is working with Learfield to negotiate NIL deals that will pass muster with the new clearinghouse. Advertisement 'Our student-athletes are already among the most competitive in the country,' Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said in a statement. 'Now, they'll have the infrastructure and support to maximize their NIL potential while strengthening their connection with the Bulldog Nation and beyond.'
New York Times
14 minutes ago
- New York Times
MLB, ESPN renew talks to keep baseball on network: Sources
Representatives for Major League Baseball and ESPN have renewed talks to keep the sports network involved in the game after a contentious break-up earlier this year, sources briefed on the conversation told The Athletic. The conversations were described to be in their early stages and, if they were to progress, would center around local rights and pieces of ESPN's former package. Advertisement In February, ESPN opted out of the final three seasons of its $550 million contract that gave it the right to broadcast 'Sunday Night Baseball,' the Home Run Derby and eight-to-12 playoff games. ESPN and MLB have been in business together for 35 years. If no new agreement is struck, their relationship would end in October. MLB and ESPN declined comment. Since the opt-out, NBC, Apple and Fox have been linked to parts or all of ESPN's current package. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he hopes to have a deal in place by mid-July's All-Star Game for those rights. News of ESPN's potential return is significant because after ESPN opt-outed, MLB did as well. The league expressed disdain for its longtime partner. In a memo obtained by The Athletic's Evan Drellich in February, Manfred informed the owners of the decision for MLB to counter ESPN's opt-out by also opting-out of ESPN's $550 million a year deal. While a symbolic gesture, Manfred also went on to describe the network as a 'shrinking platform' and said the league was 'not pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN's platforms over the past several years outside of the actual live game coverage.' ESPN's chairman Jimmy Pitaro has previously stated that he would like his network and his new direct-to-consumer app to be part of the local rights solution. MLB has struggled as the reduction of households with cable television and significantly reduced the viability of regional sports networks. In mid-May, Pitaro, during an announcement for ESPN's forthcoming new app, said his network remained interested in MLB, but had not had any conversations with the league at that point. Manfred said earlier in June that he would prefer not to be in the current negotiations since he liked the $550 million per year deal it had with ESPN. Advertisement ESPN felt it was paying too much, so it exercised its option. MLB has made deals with Apple TV for Friday night exclusive doubleheaders for around $85 million and with Roku for late Sunday morning games for $10 million a year. The Athletic previously reported that Manfred and his lieutenants have held talks regarding the league's out-of-market local rights package. ESPN, as well as streamers, like YouTube and Amazon, would be prime contenders for the programming. If an agreement came to fruition, it would be expected that it would only be for three years as MLB wants to line-up all of its rights agreements for after the 2028 season. At that point, Fox's World Series/playoff and TNT Sports' playoff rights conclude. MLB's international packages are also due at that point.
