Wings Things: Who is this team, and what have they done with the Dallas Wings?

The youth movement is spurring the Wings to five wins in their last seven games.

ARLINGTON, TX — Who are these Dallas Wings, and what have they done with the team that started the season 1-11?

The answer lies in the youth movement that injuries throughout the Wings’ roster have forced upon head coach Chris Koclanes and his staff. The 2025 Dallas Wings rookie class has fully arrived.

The Wings (6-13) started four rookies on Thursday at College Park Center, and the Dallas Class of 2025 took it to the visiting Phoenix Mercury (12-6) from the opening tip in a stunning 98-89 win with only eight players available on the roster.

“Tonight was definitely the rooks’ night,” said Aziaha James, who scored 20 of her team-high 28 points in the first half.

After former Dallas Wing Satou Sabally, who was traded to Phoenix before the 2025 season, hit two free throws on the Mercury’s first offensive possession, Dallas took off on a 19-5 run over the next four minutes to seize control of the proceedings early on. Dallas rookies accounted for every field goal during the run.

“We started with great intention to play inside, then that opens up the outside,” Koclanes said. “Then you get Aziaha going. A lot of the times, she’s getting [defended by] the [opposing team’s] weaker perimeter defender, and it becomes about making the right play and being unselfish.”

The Dallas coaching staff had no other option than to let the kids play in this one, shorthanded as they were due to injuries up and down the roster. DiJonai Carrington missed her fifth straight game with a rib injury on Thursday, but these rookies are putting Koclanes to a tough decision when she returns. Those are what you call happy problems, though — not like the laundry list of issues that plagued the team during its dismal start to the year.

“We’ve won a game without Paige. Now we’ve won a game without Arike [Ogunbowale],” Koclanes said. “Everyone on that roster can contribute. That’s our competitive depth, and everyone is going to continue to buy into that.”

James was so smooth and efficient with the ball in her hands throughout the first half. She set a career-high scoring mark with 20 points on 7-of-7 shooting, including 4-of-4 from 3-point range, and a new career-high in assists (5) in just two quarters of play. James set her previous high scoring mark of 17 points in an 86-83 win over the Connecticut Sun on June 20. She was a monster on the offensive end Thursday.

James and Bueckers combined to shoot 12-of-13 from the field in the first half. They put on an absolute clinic of offensive basketball while the team maintained a snarling, rabid brand of defense on the other end in stretches. The big moments crested one on top of another until the Wings took a 61-43 lead into halftime. The first half of Thursday was easily this team’s best half all year against a quality opponent.

And at the end of the night, the dynamic backcourt duo became the first pair of rookie teammates to each have 20 or more points and five or more assists in a game in WNBA history.

When the Mercury made their run in the third, it was James who responded for the Wings. After Alyssa Thomas scored a big bucket inside to bring Phoenix to within 67-63 as part of a 13-2 spurt with four minutes left in the third, James made a strong drive along the baseline and finished through the contact of Kitija Laksa to make it 70-63. Then Myisha Hines-Allen finished in the lane before Bueckers made a couple from the free-throw line to put the Wings back up by double figures, 74-63, with 3:47 left in the third.

“We’ve always had it in us. We always have fight. We always have belief,” Bueckers said. “No matter what our record says, on any given night, we feel like we can compete. We’re learning, we’re growing. It’s a whole new team. It takes time to establish, and so we’re sticking with our process and staying together through it all.”

This is no longer a Wings team that wilts in the face of an opponent’s run. This is a team that has the firepower in the backcourt and has added big bodies in the frontcourt to respond in kind and weather the adversity that invariably comes in every WNBA game. The Wings out-rebounded the Mercury 38-26 on their way to their most impressive win of the season so far.

Dallas has now won five of its last seven games, with two of those wins coming against the second-place teams in both conferences: the Mercury on Thursday and the Atlanta Dream on June 24. The Wings have also rattled off four straight wins at College Park Center. It begs the question: Just how much ground will the Wings be able to make up as the season wears on? Is the current trajectory sustainable in the long term? If so, then this becomes a scary, hungry young bunch as the race for the last few playoff spots takes shape in the coming weeks.

We’re not there yet, but it’s certainly a storyline to keep your eye on. If the Wings can follow Thursday’s win up with another against the same team on Monday in Phoenix, the Wings will be the talk of the league.

James finished with 28 points, six rebounds and six assists, while Bueckers added 23 more. Point guard and fellow rookie JJ Quinerly stuffed the stat sheet in her own right to finish with 17 points, seven assists and five boards in the win. And don’t forget about Li Yueru, who had her best game in a Wings’ uniform to chip in with 12 points and 11 boards.

“This was The Aziaha James Game,” Bueckers said. “That was extremely fun to watch and to be a part of. And it’s not just offensively. She was guarding one of the best perimeter players in the league on the other end in [Kahleah Copper], so take that on and just be fearless — I’m so happy for her.”

The contributions from up and down the eight active players on the roster offset a game-high 33 points from Copper and 20 more from Sabally.

Arike Ogunbowale missed the game against the Mercury with an injured left thumb. The seventh-year star appeared to jam the thumb on defense in the second half of Saturday’s win over the Mystics. She finished Saturday’s win despite wincing and holding her left hand for several possessions in the fourth quarter, then sat out Thursday.

Bueckers named rookie of the month

Earlier on Thursday, Bueckers was named the WNBA Rookie of the Month for June, after averaging 21.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 5.0 assists over seven games. The 21.6 points per game Bueckers scored was third in the W in the month of June. Her Rookie of the Month nod is the first for a Wings player since Ogunbowale did it in 2019.

Her first 20-plus point game of July marks her seventh of her rookie season. Bueckers is on her way to rewriting all the rookie-season records in the franchise record books.