The Dallas Wings made moves in free agency on Tuesday, extending a core qualifying offer to All-Star guard Arike Ogunbowale and reserved qualifying offers to guard Grace Berger and center Li Yueru.
A core qualifying offer is a fully guaranteed one-year contract worth the supermax for unrestricted free agents and restricted free agents. Under the WNBA’s new, seven-year collective bargaining agreement, the year-one maximum rose to $1.4 million and the salary cap increased to $7 million in 2026, up from $1.5 million in 2025. If a player receives a core designation, they can only sign or negotiate a contract during free agency with the team that designated them.
A core designation doesn’t guarantee a player will stay with an organization. The Wings cored Satou Sabally last year and she was traded to Phoenix.
Ogunbowale, a four-time WNBA All-Star, enters her eighth season in 2026. She averaged 15.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.3 rebounds per game in 2025, recording career lows in average points and field goal percentage (36.4%). Ogunbowale didn’t finish the season due to injury.
Ogunbowale has been a face of the franchise since the Wings drafted her in the first round in 2019. She was named WNBA All-Star MVP in 2021 and 2024 and was the WNBA scoring champion in 2020, when she earned All-WNBA First Team honors.
The 29-year-old guard was the highest-paid player on the roster last year at $249,032, according to the Her Hoop Stats WNBA salary cap database. Ogunbowale won the 2026 championship in 3-on-3 women’s basketball league Unrivaled as a member of Mist BC.
Yueru, who joined the team via a trade with the Seattle Storm last June in exchange for two future draft selections, averaged 7.4 points and 5.8 rebounds in 2025. Berger, who first joined the Wings on a hardship contract before signing a rest-of-season contract last August, averaged 3.4 points, 3.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists last year.
Dallas had about $4.9 million in cap room before Tuesday, with salaries for players under contract with the team having been scaled up. The Wings have the No. 1 pick in April 13’s WNBA draft, and whomever they select is projected to earn $500,000.