2024 Fever might provide blueprint for how the Wings can save their season

The Dallas Wings landed the No. 1 overall draft pick this year, a monumental feat that brought Paige Bueckers to the team and hope to a franchise that has struggled in recent years. But the Wings are nearly immediately hit with a brutal reality: you can have good players, but it takes time for a team to come together (if it does at all). This situation is not completely unlike what the Fever navigated at the beginning of the 2024 season.

The Fever headed into the Olympic Games break last season with an 11-15 record, and the team was sitting at 7th place. That wasn't the best, wasn't the worst, but certainly wasn't what people hoped for after Caitlin Clark joined the team.

Of course, any team that adds players needs time to gel, and Clark specifically needed a few weeks to truly come into her own as a leader. Aliyah Boston was tasked with learning an entirely new, Clark-centered style of play, and the duo had to work through the necessary growing pains that came with that.

The Wings are in a similar spot, kind of — but they also are not. Dallas can't completely look back on Indiana's experience last season as a guide, but there are elements of what the Fever went through that can serve as a kind of blueprint for the best way the Wings can navigate the remainder of the 2025 season.

The Wings don't have an answer for Kelsey Mitchell or Aliyah Boston

The 2025 Wings aren't a direct callback to the 2024 Fever for two big reasons: the team is lacking a true answer for Kelsey Mitchell and Boston, both of whom were integral parts of bringing the Fever to playoff contention after the WNBA returned last year.

The Wings also aren't supporting Bueckers, who has so far done an incredible job this season when she hasn't been out for injury, the way the Fever supported Clark from the beginning of last season. All too often, the rest of the team isn't looking for Bueckers first or getting her the ball.

The Wings also have a coaching problem

Dallas also seems to have a coaching issue. Many fans have questioned the hiring of Chris Koclanes since day one, and so far he's done very little to quell those concerns.

In some ways, this isn't too dissimilar from the feedback Christie Sides received throughout the 2024 season, with one notable exception: while Sides might not have been a fan favorite, she had no problem letting Clark do what she needed to do on the floor, an attitude Koclanes seems hesitant to adopt when it comes to Bueckers.

How the Wings can take a page from the Fever's book

Having said that, there is at least one way the Wings can look to the Fever of last year: the team needs to put their egos aside and rally around Bueckers, especially if vet Arike Ogunbowale continues to put in less-than-stellar performances (it's worth noting Ogunbowale can also turn this season around herself if she starts hitting sooner than later).