{"id":678755,"date":"2026-06-01T23:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678755\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T23:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:39:10","slug":"wings-confident-in-alanna-smith-despite-early-season-setbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678755\/","title":{"rendered":"Wings confident in Alanna Smith despite early-season setbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u200bEarly-season setbacks for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/wings\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Wings<\/a> forward Alanna Smith have prevented fans from seeing her full potential on the team\u2019s new-look roster.<\/p>\n<p>The Wings identified the reigning co-defensive player of the year as one of their top offseason targets. But through seven games played for 5\u20133 Dallas, Smith has averaged 3.7 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2 assists and 1.1 steals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe signed Alanna for a reason. There\u2019s so many things that go into someone\u2019s performance,\u201d Wings coach Jose Fernandez said of Smith ahead of the contest with the Aces last week. \u201cShe\u2019s very hard on herself and she cares and she\u2019s a winner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what she\u2019s going through right now and having to play with a mask \u2026I think she needs to be shown some grace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith is set to return Monday night for the Wings\u2019 home contest against the Seattle Storm at College Park Center. The game will mark Dallas\u2019 first of the annual WNBA Commissioner\u2019s Cup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s a competitor. She just wants to win,\u201d Bueckers said. \u201c&#8230;She carries a huge, huge presence on this team defensively and being our anchor and being our communicator and our leader that way. Basketball is so much more than made or missed shots and how many points you score.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut to have her on the floor, there\u2019s a lot of stuff that you don\u2019t see behind-the-scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bEarly-season setbacks for Dallas Wings forward Alanna Smith have prevented fans from seeing her full potential on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[14537,99,249343,248033,434],"class_list":["post-678755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-brief","tag-sports","tag-tp-dallas-wings","tag-tp-paige-bueckers","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678755","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=678755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}