{"id":245871,"date":"2026-04-12T04:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T04:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/245871\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T04:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T04:08:08","slug":"dallas-wings-sign-reigning-defensive-player-of-the-year-alanna-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/245871\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings sign reigning Defensive Player of the Year Alanna Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/wings\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Wings<\/a> added a big piece to their 2026 roster on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlanna Smith was our top target going into free agency after her outstanding 2025 season,\u201d Wings general manager Curt Miller said in a statement. \u201cAs the reigning Co-Defensive Player of the Year, she is one of the top two-way players in the\u00a0WNBA who consistently impacts both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ultimately, she possesses the personal character that we wanted to add to our locker room \u2013 where we want to win first. Her journey in the WNBA is a testament to her perseverance, rising to be the highly decorated player she is today, and we can\u2019t wait to welcome her to Dallas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith, entering her eighth season out of Stanford, averaged 9.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.9 blocks and 1.3 steals during the 2025 season and also received a first-team All-Defense nod. She shared Defensive Player of the Year honors with A&#8217;ja Wilson. Her 1.9 blocks per game and 80 total blocks each ranked third in the league.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to put into words what my time in Minnesota has meant to me,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DXAesqGDUjF\/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Australia native wrote in an Instagram post<\/a>. &#8220;This team and this city embraced me and I am so grateful for all the love and support and how this Aussie girl was welcomed with open arms. Forever will hold a special place in my heart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Wings added a big piece to their 2026 roster on Saturday night. \u201cAlanna Smith was our&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-245871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}