First-year Dallas Wings head coach Jose Fernandez laid into his new team after their 90-86 loss to the Minnesota Lynx on Thursday night.
“There’s selfishness in this locker room,” Fernandez said at his postgame presser. “There is. You gotta look in the mirror and be accountable for how you played, and don’t get upset if you think you should have played more, or you didn’t play enough. […] Really good teams, they don’t give a [expletive] about that. You know what they give a [expletive] about? They give a [expletive] about winning.”
At practice Saturday, All-Star guard Paige Bueckers gave her self-assessment.
“I started off the second half aggressive,” Bueckers said, per Melissa Triebwasser. “Just seeing a lot of single coverage, and then towards the end of the game, they were trapping and blitzing everything, so [I had] to be able to play off of that and just read what the defense is giving me and be selfless, too.”
Bueckers has most often been likened to fellow UConn alum and retired WNBA legend Diana Taurasi, but she compared her game to Stephen Curry, the iconic Golden State Warriors point guard and four-time NBA champion.
“If you watch Steph Curry, he’s probably the best screener in the NBA, and he has the best gravity in the NBA,” Bueckers told Triebwasser. “So, sort of mimic after him and his off-ball movement, his off-ball screening, and his selflessness is something that I’ve actually learned from a lot.”
Bueckers, the Wings’ 2025 No. 1 overall pick, may have been lumped in with the players whom Fernandez called selfish, but probably not.
Three games into the 2026 WNBA season, Bueckers has been the engine that makes everything go in Dallas. The Wings look like an entirely different team when she’s off the floor. Then again, she is trying to adapt to Fernandez’s system just like everyone else, so maybe there’s a learning curve for the reigning Rookie of the Year.
Bueckers scored 27 points on 7-for-13 shooting from the floor (3-for-4 from three) and logged eight assists in the Wings’ loss to Minnesota. After an impressive win over the Indiana Fever in the season opener, Dallas has lost two straight games. They’ll have a chance to get back on track against Washington on Monday night.
Read the full article here
