Even though NaLyssa Smith has been an Aces player since June 30, she slept in her new Las Vegas apartment for the first time Friday night.<\/p>\n
Smith, a 6-foot-4 forward, laughed when she made that realization following her team\u2019s win over the Golden State Valkyries<\/a> on Saturday. It was an example of just how fast things changed after she was acquired from the Dallas Wings for a 2027 first-round <\/a>pick<\/a>.<\/p>\n Smith, 24, has played five games for the Aces (10-11) so far, averaging 6.8 points and five rebounds per game. She\u2019ll return to Dallas to take on her old team at 5 p.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe transition has been smooth, honestly,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of people that have helped me out with this process because they know how rushed it was, so I feel like I have a lot of people in my corner.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith said three-time WNBA MVP A\u2019ja Wilson has been the \u201cbiggest help\u201d as she acclimates to her new team.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s just constantly coaching me up,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n Wilson\u2019s presence was a silver lining for Smith after learning she\u2019d be traded. Smith posted to X that she was sick to her stomach upon hearing the news, but added she was excited to play with her WNBA \u201cGOAT.\u201d<\/p>\n The deal separated Smith from her partner DiJonai Carrington, a guard-forward for the Wings (6-16). Dallas general manager Curt Miller told reporters the trade was too good to pass up.<\/p>\n \u201c(Smith) was fantastic,\u201d Miller said. \u201cUltimately, the balance between now and the future is something that you\u2019re always trying to look at as a GM. \u2026 It\u2019s certainly not often, especially coming out of a new CBA, that a first-round pick is available.\u201d<\/p>\n Aces president Nikki Fargas offered her thoughts on the trade in an interview with the Review-Journal before Wednesday\u2019s matchup:<\/p>\n RJ: What led to the decision to exchange a first-round pick for Smith?<\/p>\n Fargas: When you\u2019re looking at putting the pieces to the puzzle together, an area that we needed to challenge ourselves to be better in was on the boards, offensively and defensively. Smith also matches the physicality of this league and brings a toughness while also being able to score the basketball.<\/p>\n We needed some additional help for A\u2019ja Wilson, and (Smith) fit that. She\u2019s fit right in with this team. And she\u2019s not new to the game but she\u2019s still young as far as how many years of service she\u2019s been in the W, so we looked at that also as a future investment. We can see her staying with the organization as someone that we can continue to build with.<\/p>\n When you have an opportunity to gain all that when we don\u2019t know what things are going to look like with expansion drafts and with the CBA, we felt Smith could be a future piece while impacting us right now.<\/p>\n RJ: Coach Becky Hammon has spoken positively about Smith since she was selected No. 2 overall by the Indiana Fever in 2022. Did Hammon ask about her?<\/p>\n Fargas: No, it started with conversations between Curt and I. I\u2019ve followed Smith\u2019s career as a Texas kid since she was at Baylor. She won a national championship. She was a Wade Trophy winner (for the best player in women\u2019s college basketball). You always keep your eye on that type of talent. For it to happen that we could come in and get NaLyssa, we were extremely excited about what this young lady could do right now. She\u2019s a walking double-double. There\u2019s certain things that you want as you continue to build your team and as you continue to make a run in the playoffs, and one of them is consistency. I feel like we\u2019re going to get that from her.<\/p>\n RJ: In addition to the first-round pick, you had to waive free agent signing Tiffany Mitchell and 2024 second-round pick Elizabeth Kitley to make room for Smith. How did that factor into things?<\/p>\n Fargas: It was hard. Tiffany Mitchell has been nothing but solid in this league. And (Kitley) is going to be solid, she just needs some more time. But when you\u2019re absorbing a contract, and when your salary cap is restricted a little bit because of the replacement player \u2014 you wish that it could work out from a cap standpoint, but it just didn\u2019t. So we had to make those tough decisions.<\/p>\n RJ: There are 10 active players on the roster now that center Megan Gustafson has returned from an ankle injury. What are your options moving forward? Can you add someone else while waiting for forward Cheyenne Parker-Tyus to return after giving birth to her second child<\/a>?<\/p>\n Fargas: We believe in this team. We believe in the core and the supporting cast. We feel like we have enough. Although our record is not reflecting it, you can see there\u2019s a shift in us. We\u2019re going to be peaking at the right time. So we\u2019re going to stay with our nucleus. We added (Smith) and we now have (Gustafson) coming back. We\u2019re looking forward to when that time comes for (Parker-Tyus) to join us. We\u2019ve got still pieces coming in, and I think that\u2019s going to allow us to have this spark. Gustafson gives you everything that she has. Cheyenne Parker-Tyus is an All-Star, another dominant post player. It\u2019s going to change how we look on the floor. I know coach (Hammon) loves playing small ball, but now she can go to big ball if she wants to as well.<\/p>\n Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com<\/a>. Follow @CallieJLaw<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though NaLyssa Smith has been an Aces player since June 30, she slept in her new Las…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-12654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}