Azzi Fudd wasn’t the only addition to the Dallas Wings’ roster on draft night on Monday.
Dallas selected Zee Spearman out of Tennessee with the 31st overall pick of the 2026 WNBA Draft. It was the first pick of the third round of the draft.
The Wings gave up their second-round pick this year and a third-rounder next year to get Li Yueru, whom the Wings re-signed on a one-year deal last week, in a mid-season trade last year.
Spearman comes to the Wings from the Volunteers, who lost in the Round of 64 in the 2026 Women’s NCAA Tournament. The 6’4” forward averaged 10.2 points and 5.8 rebounds in her senior season. She played two seasons at Miami before transferring to Tennessee for her junior season.
She started 27 of 30 games for the Lady Vols as a senior and vastly improved her perimeter game throughout her senior season at Rocky Top.
Spearman joins a suddenly crowded Wings frontcourt, after the team made moves to bring reigning Co-WNBA Defensive Player of the Year winner Alanna Smith into the fold before the draft, while also resigning center Li Yueru and adding forwards Jessica Shepard and Rayah Marshall.
“We really like her athleticism,” Wings coach Jose Fernandez said in a post-draft press conference. “She can be a threat on the perimeter. She’s long and athletic, she can block shots, she can run, she’s active, so she’ll get here in camp. We talked to her tonight. She’s ready to get to Dallas.”
Wings general manager Curt Miller added that bringing Spearman to Dallas was part of an intentional move to get longer and more athletic along the front line, after a 2025 season that saw the Wings’ defense give up a ton of easy buckets to opposing bigs.
“We want to improve defensively in the post,” Miller said. “But we also, I think, improved some 3-point shooting. In Zee, probably our opinion is she may have played a little too much on the perimeter [in college]. We’re going to reintroduce her back into the paint a little when she gets here, but she shows the ability to play outside as well.”
Spearman scored a season-high 24 points against East Tennessee State in an early-season matchup in November, and blocked six shots a month later in a game against Southern Indiana.
Third-round draft picks in the WNBA face steep uphill climbs in trying to latch on with the teams that draft them. Less than five percent of third-round draft picks historically end up making the team that drafts them. In 2025, only about half of all draft picks made a WNBA roster.
Rori Harmon, the point guard out of the University of Texas, was still on the board when the Wings took Spearman. She went three picks later at 34 overall to the Washington Mystics, who had six picks in the 2026 draft.
The point guard position in Dallas is all but sewn up with Paige Bueckers, last year’s No. 1 overall draft pick, locked into the position, and two intriguing youngsters, JJ Quinerly and Aziaha James, behind her. The Wings selected James with the 12th overall pick a year ago and selected Quinerly 27th overall.
Quinerly’s presence on the roster is evidence that third-round selections have a shot to catch on. It’ll be up to Spearman to catch the eye of the Wings coaching staff in a shortened preseason as the 2026 season approaches.