Dallas Wings add height, talent to team in latest WNBA draft
Fred Jeter | 4/22/2021, 6 p.m.
If any team appears to be on the runway and prepared for WNBA takeoff, it’s the Dallas Wings.
Talk about fueling up. Dallas had the first, second and fifth overall picks in the April 15 draft held virtually.
With the top selection, the Wings chose 6-foot-5 Charli Collier out of the University of Texas.
Collier, from Mont Belvieu, Texas, averaged 19 points and 11 rebounds and blocked 37 shots this past season for the Texas Longhorns.
While Collier is merely crossing her home state to join the Wings, the WNBA No. 2 overall pick, 6-foot-5 Awak Kuier, is traveling across the Atlantic Ocean from Finland.
Kuier, at 19, is the youngest player to be drafted this year and the first from Finland. Of South Sudanese origin, she was born in Egypt and moved to Finland with her family when she was 2.
With the fifth pick, the Wings selected 5-foot-10 guard Chelsea Dungee out of the University of Arkansas.
Coming off an abbreviated 2020 season in which the team went 8-14, Dallas Wings Coach Vickie Johnson already had two of the league’s most promising young talents in 6-foot-4 Satou Sabally and 5-foot-8 Arike Ogunbowale.
Ogunbowale, 24, a former University of Notre Dame star, has led the WNBA in scoring the past two seasons. Sabally, 22, was the overall No. 2 draft pick a year ago out of the University of Oregon.
