Dallas Wings

Charli Collier posted an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double in her WNBA debut to help the Dallas Wings earn a season-opening 94-71 road victory over the Los Angeles Sparks on Friday at Staples Center.

The No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 draft shot 4-of-6 from the field and 3-of-4 from the free-throw line. She also added one steal and one block, and the Wings outscored the Sparks by 15 with the ex-Texas star on the floor.

Collier's first WNBA bucket occurred in the first quarter, when she gained positioning on Sparks center Chiney Ogwumike and hit a jumper in the key:

First #WNBA bucket for @charlicollier! 🔥#TakeFlight pic.twitter.com/vdRmj50VR6

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) May 15, 2021

Collier later nailed a bucket from just inside the three-point line:

Showin' off the range! 👀@charlicollier #TakeFlight pic.twitter.com/OqYn8ZnmM0

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) May 15, 2021

Her biggest basket occurred in the third quarter, however.

L.A. went on an 11-3 run to cut a 63-49 lead to 66-60. Wings forward Allisha Gray then missed a layup, but Collier grabbed the offensive board between two Sparks players and was able to muscle her way to a bucket for an eight-point edge:

💪💪💪@charlicollier

70-60 us
10 min to go#TakeFlight pic.twitter.com/DZ5NzyUG6f

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) May 15, 2021

Collier added five more points afterward.

Gray led all scorers with 23 points on 7-of-15 shooting in addition to her nine rebounds. She also excelled on the defensive end, amassing four steals.

.@Graytness_15 has a game-high 12! 😉#TakeFlight pic.twitter.com/pUYdy3iJ9n

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) May 15, 2021

Wings guard Tyesha Harris dished seven assists to guide a fantastic offensive effort that included shooting 53.1 percent from the field. Dallas also knocked down 18-of-22 free throws.

Dallas guard Arike Ogunbowale had an efficient game, scoring 17 points in just 20 minutes. The ex-Notre Dame star and 2018 NCAA tournament heroine was limited due to foul trouble, but her 10 third-quarter points enabled Dallas to take a 70-60 lead into the fourth quarter.

"@Arike_O is always on the attack."

Yup! ☑️#TakeFlight pic.twitter.com/peXnS6TIel

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) May 15, 2021

Heatin' up! 🔥@Arike_O #TakeFlight pic.twitter.com/1aAxJaBWZK

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) May 15, 2021

For L.A., forward Nneka Ogwumike led the Sparks with 18 points, and her younger sister, Chiney, added 12 more.

The Sparks took a 27-20 lead after the first quarter but went ice cold afterward. Dallas took advantage, outscoring Los Angeles 24-14 in the second quarter, 26-19 in the third and 24-11 in the fourth.

Dallas won despite committing 26 turnovers. The Sparks couldn't take advantage, though, shooting just 35.9 percent from the field and 7-of-27 from three-point range. Dallas also dominated the boards, 45-25.

Dallas now faces a tough test against the defending WNBA champion Seattle Storm, who will visit the Wings at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas on Saturday, May 22 at 8 p.m. ET.

The Sparks also have a tough test with the team scheduled to visit the WNBA finalist Las Vegas Aces at Mandalay Bay Events Center on Friday at 10:30 p.m.

The Dallas Wings selected 6'5" center Charli Collier with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 WNBA draft.

With the No. 1 pick in the #WNBADraft 2021 presented by @StateFarm, the @DallasWings select @charlicollier from @TexasWBB! #CountIt pic.twitter.com/kFb4tXEive

— WNBA (@WNBA) April 15, 2021

Charli Collier dominated the college game averaging 19.0 PPG, 11.3 RPG at Texas 😤

The WNBA game is next. @brhoops https://t.co/lChxYuYvwh

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 15, 2021

The moment Charli Collier became the No. 1 overall pick by the Wings 👏 #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/4MqJcbrvZB

— espnW (@espnW) April 15, 2021

Collier was widely expected to be the first name off of the board on Thursday. 

Who going number 1 tonight? I got Charli Collier

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) April 15, 2021

But the Wings were just getting started. In addition to the first two picks, Dallas had two other picks in the first round.

Dallas Wings start their draft onslaught with UT’s @charlicollier. Still on the clock! Trying to imagine what it would be like if Mavs had 1st, 2nd and 5th picks like Wings. Don’t even try to imagine a world where Cowboys had that...

— Tim Cowlishaw (@TimCowlishaw) April 15, 2021

In addition to her on-court talent, Collier highlighted her fashion sense on draft night, wearing an outfit designed by Sergio Hudson, who has also styled for Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris. 

No. 1 pick Charli Collier's WNBA draft day fit 🔥

(via @togethxr) pic.twitter.com/82hRTgpFku

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 15, 2021

Charli Collier from Texas goes No. 1 to the Dallas Wings!

And she did not come to play with this look 😳🔥#WNBADraft #WNBA

— Kim Adams (@_kimadams) April 15, 2021

A Texas native who played collegiately with the Longhorns, the 21-year-old (who turns 22 in September) is the first No. 1 pick from Texas (h/t Nick Moyle of the San Antonio Express-News). 

SHE'S STAYING IN TEXAS Y'ALL 🤘@CharliCollier • #WNBA pic.twitter.com/dHzLsIHwzp

— Texas Longhorns (@TexasLonghorns) April 15, 2021

Collier is coming off of a career year at Texas where she shot 51.1 percent from the field and 31.3 percent from three while averaging 19.0 points and 11.3 rebounds per game. 

Through three seasons with the Longhorns, she averaged 12.7 points on 46.6 percent shooting (33.3 percent from three) with 8.7 rebounds through 92 appearances. 

A standout on the boards (with an average that ranked 17th in Division I in 2020-21), Collier will be in immediate relief to a Wings team that struggled defensively in 2020.

Dallas ranked third-worst in the league in rebounds per game and grabbed 48.3 percent of balls off the glass, just barely ahead of Phoenix, which finished last at 48.2. 

The team ranked second-worst in defensive rating (108.0) and points allowed in the paint (40.5). 

Collier will be an important asset to a Wings team that is looking to move on from an 8-14 campaign. 

Dallas Wings center Imani McGee-Stafford has left her WNBA team for at least two seasons to pursue a law degree at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

"While I am saddened to step away from such a big part of my life, I'm also excited for this next chapter," McGee-Stafford said, per Mechelle Voepel of ESPN.

The Wings have placed her on the team's suspended list.

"We wish Imani well as she pursues a law degree," Wings president and CEO Greg Bibb said in a statement. "We thank her for her hard work and contribution to the Wings organization and support her decision to step away from the WNBA in order to achieve a longtime goal."

The 6'7" McGee-Stafford has played four seasons in the WNBA with the Wings, Chicago Sky and Atlanta Dream after starring at Texas in college.

The 25-year-old appeared in 29 games for Dallas last season, averaging 3.9 points and 3.8 rebounds per game.

She has also spent time with several overseas teams during the WNBA offseason, including in China, Israel and most recently Australia.

McGee-Stafford is the sister of Los Angeles Lakers center JaVale McGee

While the 2020 WNBA season is scheduled to begin May 15, it could be delayed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dallas Wings star Skylar Diggins-Smith confirmed her intentions Monday to play for another WNBA team in 2020. 

"I don't plan on playing in Dallas next year," she said to the Associated Press' Doug Feinberg. "I'm happy to be playing in this league and I want to play."

Wings president and CEO Greg Bibb told Feinberg the team applied the core designation to the four-time All-Star, which entitles her to earn the new $215,000 max salary for the upcoming season.

Diggins-Smith's comments affirm what many expected as the WNBA offseason gets underway.

The 29-year-old missed the entire 2019 campaign following the birth of her first child. In October, she tweeted she had played throughout 2018 while pregnant and criticized what she felt was a lack of support from her team:

Having no support from your own organization is unfortunate

— Skylar Diggins-Smith (@SkyDigg4) October 18, 2019

People called me a quitter, said I gave up on my team, etc., etc.

Not knowing I took two FULL months away from everything because of postpartum depression. With limited resources to help me be successful mentally/physically.

But just wait though....KEEP THAT SAME ENERGY.

— Skylar Diggins-Smith (@SkyDigg4) October 19, 2019

Bibb told reporters the Wings paid Diggins-Smith her full salary while on maternity leave. The new collective bargaining agreement makes that the standard throughout the league, with the previous CBA stipulating teams were only required to pay half of a player's wages.

Bibb also told The Athletic's Dorothy Gentry the Wings "expressed our support for her, including several times communicating to her the medical services that were available to her and her family through our team."

Diggins-Smith said she'd be open to staying with the Wings but that she wanted to see changes from the franchise:

"The organization has changes that it needs to make. Everyone knows that. That's no secret to the public. It's out of my hands now. I would love to finish my career in Dallas. If those conditions aren't improved for myself, for the women on the team, for the WNBA, our children ... I'm not coming back to that and that's exactly what I told (Wings president and CEO) Greg Bibb and the organization. I've been transparent with that the whole time."

This is the second time in two years in which Dallas is at risk of losing one of its best players.

Liz Cambage requested to leave in January 2019. In an essay for The Players' Tribune in August, she wrote she lost her support system with the Wings when the team fired head coach Fred Williams.

The Wings eventually traded Cambage to the Las Vegas Aces for Moriah Jefferson, Isabelle Harrison and the Aces' first- and second-round picks in 2020.

Dallas' leverage will have eroded with Diggins-Smith's preference out in the open, but she should still have a robust trade market. She averaged 17.9 points, 6.2 assists and 1.4 steals in her last season.

The Wings, meanwhile, already have the foundation in place for a rebuild. Arike Ogunbowale was runner-up in the 2019 Rookie of the Year voting after averaging 19.1 points, and Allisha Gray emerged as a dynamic long-range threat, hitting 38.4 percent of her three-pointers.

Dallas also has the No. 2 pick in the draft, which will allow the front office to either fortify the frontcourt or find a backcourt partner to play alongside Ogunbowale.

Two-time WNBA All-Star Liz Cambage has requested a trade from the Dallas Wings.

Wings President and CEO Gregg Bibb provided a statement about the situation: "Liz Cambage has communicated through her representation a desire to play elsewhere in the WNBA during the 2019 season. While Liz is currently under contract with the Dallas Wings, we will work to resolve this issue while keeping the interest of our organization the priority."

WNBAinsidr's Rachel Galligan first reported Cambage's request.

Cambage averaged a league-high 23.0 points per game and was second in rebounding (9.7) during the 2018 season. She finished second to the Seattle Storm's Breanna Stewart in MVP voting.

The highlight of Cambage's season came when she poured in a single-game record 53 points in a win over the New York Liberty in July.

Liz Cambage put up a historic stat-line today, with 53 POINTS (including 4 threes), 10 rebounds, and 5 blocks to become the record leader in most points in a single #WNBA game!

Watch @ecambage make history 🔥 #WatchMeWork pic.twitter.com/9O9gPVhcUv

— WNBA (@WNBA) July 17, 2018

The 6'8" center said in August she was unsure whether she'd return to the WNBA in 2019. The No. 2 overall pick in the 2011 draft, the Australian has played just three years in the league and cited the WNBA's relatively low salaries as one of her primary concerns.

"I've said this many times: [The WNBA] doesn't pay my bills. Playing here doesn't pay my bills," she said, per ESPN.com's Sean Hurd. "We make more money overseas. I'm ready to have next summer off and focus on getting a European contract where it's 10 seasons here worth the pay."

Because she has already said she's content to focus her attention elsewhere, Cambage arguably holds all the cards right now. If the Wings are unable to find a trade suitor, they risk watching her take another extended hiatus. She has played three seasons in China and recently enjoyed a spell with the Melbourne Boomers in Australia.

Cambage's trade demand isn't entirely surprising.

Dallas has a new head coach in Brian Agler, who said during his introductory press conference he had yet to reach out to the Australia international.

Skylar Diggins-Smith is also set to miss a large chunk of 2019 after announcing in October she was pregnant. Even though Agler is a two-time WNBA champion as a head coach, the Wings might struggle without their star guard.

Having reached the WNBA playoffs just once in three seasons, the 27-year-old Cambage might prefer to play for a team closer to winning a WNBA title.

The Los Angeles Sparks may be the front-runners to land Cambage. The Sparks just hired Fred Williams as one of their top assistants under head coach Derek Fisher. Williams and Cambage had a strong rapport when he coached the Wings last season.

Skylar Diggins-Smith's family is about to get bigger. 

The Dallas Wings star announced on Instagram on Wednesday that she and her husband, Daniel Smith, are expecting a child. She posted a clip from her ultrasound, via The Score's Andrew Joe Potter:

https://twitter.com/AndrewJoePotter/status/1052667534938390531

Skylar and Daniel met while the two were student-athletes at Notre Dame. Diggins was a star on the women's basketball team, while Smith was a wide receiver on the football team.

The two tied the knot in the spring of 2017.

Dallas Wings point guard Skylar Diggins-Smith said WNBA players "have to fight" in an effort to reduce the massive pay differential between its players and their male counterparts in the NBA.  

On Tuesday, Diggins-Smith explained to Anna Peele of Wealthsimple that the effort must begin within the league to rectify issues such as WNBA players only getting around 20 percent of their league's revenue compared to the approximately 50 percent the NBA players receive.

"I'm at a loss for words sometimes, talking about this," she said. "It's unfortunate that men make more money for the same amount of work, or even less work."

Diggins-Smith said she understands that critics often attempt to "hijack this issue" by attempting to "disparage women in sports," but she believes the road to equality starts with fairness from the income streams.

"But we don't even make the same percentage of revenue! And jersey sales…we don't get any of it," she told Peele. "The men do. And I have had a top-five jersey for three or four years in the WNBA."

The four-time WNBA All-Star selection and Olympic gold medalist said she's the highest-paid member of the Wings with a base salary in the "low six figures." Meanwhile, the minimum salary in the NBA is just over $838,000 and increases every season up to $2.39 million for a player with 10-plus years of service.

Diggins-Smith said she's working with Roc Nation Sports founder Jay-Z to grow her brand and create more mainstream appeal. But she also wants the WNBA to work harder to create more marketing opportunities for their players.

"I would be curious to know how successful we could be with such a great product if we had the same platform as the guys do," she said. "Think about the marketing dollars that they spend on guys, the platform given to them. Branding opportunities, TV deals, endorsement deals. It's kind of like the chicken and the egg."

She's not alone in her search for more competitive salaries.

Las Vegas Aces forward A'ja Wilson posted a message on Twitter last month after NBA superstar LeBron James signed a four-year, $154 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers:

https://twitter.com/_ajawilson22/status/1013579426708086784

Diggins-Smith, a former Notre Dame Fighting Irish standout, also requested for more men to help in their fight. She shouted out Washington Wizards center Dwight Howard for attending Atlanta Dream games and former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant for going to games in L.A., but she's hoping for more wide-ranging support.

"As athletes, we have to fight. As women, we have to fight. And we need more people at our table to fight with us," she told Wealthsimple. "There need to be more women and more people of color hired so we can curate our own sports stories. And we need men speaking out about these things."

The 2018 WNBA playoffs continue Thursday night with the single-elimination second round as the Washington Mystics take on the Los Angeles Sparks and the Connecticut Sun battle the Phoenix Mercury.

The Dallas Wings fired head coach Fred Williams on Sunday.

SB Nation's Matt Ellentuck and High Post Hoops' Howard Megdal reported Williams got into an argument with team president and chief executive officer Greg Bibb after Sunday's 93-80 defeat to the Washington Mystics.

Bibb provided a statement about the move in the Wings' press release:

"I felt this move was necessary. The season has not met our expectations. I have asked [assistant coach Taj McWilliams-Franklin] to serve as our interim head coach and I have the upmost confidence that she and our staff will do everything possible to put us in the best position to win. I wish Fred the best moving forward. Our focus remains on qualifying for the playoffs and ultimately competing for a WNBA championship."

Even before the incident with Bibb, Williams was likely on shaky ground.

The Wings have now lost eight games in a row, which has caused them to slip to eighth in the WNBA. Their seemingly comfortable gap on the ninth-place Las Vegas Aces for the final playoff spot has almost evaporated, as only one game separates the two teams.

Liz Cambage's recent absence hasn't helped matters for the Wings. Cambage is an MVP candidate averaging 23.0 points and 9.6 rebounds, but she didn't play in the team's last two games due to a head injury. According to Basketball Reference, Cambage's 30.0 percent usage rate leads all WNBA regulars, so her absence has caused the Wings to scramble on the fly.

Last year, Dallas finished seventh in the WNBA. Not only did the Wings get Cambage back from her WNBA hiatus in the offseason, but they also selected Connecticut star Azura Stevens in the first round of the 2018 draft. They should've been challenging for a top-four spot, not fighting for their playoff lives.

Dallas has only three games left in the regular season, so firing Williams now may not make much of a difference. At least the Wings now have a bit more time to consider all of their options for Williams' permanent replacement.

Liz Cambage set a WNBA scoring record for points in a single game in a win ove the New York Liberty on Tuesday. How did the Dallas Wings' star light up the scoreboard? Watch above to see the stats behind her electric performance.

     

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Dallas Wings center Liz Cambage made history in Tuesday's game against the New York Liberty, scoring a WNBA single-game record 53 points in Dallas' 104-87 win.

Historic performance for Liz Cambage 🔥 pic.twitter.com/PfxWFdJ2VP

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 17, 2018

Cambage surpassed Riquna Williams' previous record of 51 points on a three-pointer with 45 seconds left in the game.

With this three, @ecambage sets the LEAGUE and FRANCHISE record for MOST POINTS in a #WNBA game 🏆🔥👏 #WatchMeWork pic.twitter.com/fhP0tx7ekL

— WNBA (@WNBA) July 17, 2018

Defense has been a problem for the Liberty throughout this season. New York entered the game 10th in defensive rating (105.3), according to WNBA.com.

The Liberty simply had no answer for Cambage. She was 17-of-22 from the field and hit a season-high 15 foul shots. She was even 4-of-5 from beyond the arc Tuesday after having shot 5-of-18 on three-pointers in her previous 21 appearances.

Liz Cambage (@DallasWings) set a @WNBA record with 53 points in a game today.

She was 17-for-22 from the field (77%) and added 10 rebounds.

Cambage outscored the entire Liberty starting five (53-43). pic.twitter.com/STxq5epnVo

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) July 17, 2018

Cambage's impact wasn't limited to scoring, either. She collected 10 rebounds for her ninth double-double of the year and blocked five shots.

After taking a break from playing in the WNBA to focus on her overseas career, Cambage has seamlessly transitioned back into the league.

Following Tuesday's offensive explosion, Cambage is second in scoring (21.4 points) while also sitting second behind reigning MVP Sylvia Fowles in rebounding (9.2).

The Wings are 6-1 in their last seven games to climb into a tie for fourth with the Washington Mystics at 13-9. Cambage is a big reason for Dallas' recent turnaround, putting her firmly in the 2018 MVP discussion.