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5 WNBA players who will struggle with their new teams
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- 5 WNBA players who will struggle with their new teams
Kiah Stokes | Ethan Miller/GettyImages
The chaos of the shortened WNBA offseason is almost all the way behind us, and while some notable free agents like Natasha Cloud remain on the board , most of the top players have found a home.
Some of those players are set to have major success with their new teams , but for others, a change in scenery simply won't be enough to get their WNBA careers back on track.
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Alysha Clark - Dallas Wings
Forward Alysha Clark | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
I'm really curious about what happens with the small forward role in Dallas this season . The way I see it, either the team embraces being guard heavy by playing either Arike Ogunbowale or Azzi Fudd there in what's basically just a lineup with three guards (with Paige Bueckers at the point, even if I ultimately view her more as a combo guard), or they stick Maddy Siegrist there and hope she continues to grow her game, with Fudd coming off the bench as a scoring spark.
But where does that leave one of the team's other offseason additions, Alysha Clark? Well...I don't really know.
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Clark has long been a useful glue player and won Sixth Player of the Year as recently as 2023. She's made one of the league's All-Defense teams twice. The issue is that Clark kind of fell off a cliff last season. Just compare her 2024 campaign - when she finished fifth in 6POY voting - to a 2025 split between the Storm and Mystics.
| PPG |
STL |
3P% |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 |
6.0 |
0.8 |
37.3 |
| 2025 |
3.9 |
0.6 |
27.1 |
There's a very good chance that a 38-year-old Clark has hit the wall that all players hit eventually, where she simply isn't the player she once was and there's no path to get her back to that. Dallas can offer her minutes as the backup three, but it can't turn back the clocks.
Kiah Stokes - Golden State Valkyries
Center Kiah Stokes | Brad Rempel-Imagn Images
Kiah Stokes has become a kind of running punchline with the Las Vegas Aces because she essentially provides nothing offensively. Last season, Stokes gave Vegas 1.3 field goal attempts per game, and the team replaced her this offseason with Brianna Turner , a center who is equally a non-factor on offense but has better defensive upside.
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Now Stokes is off to Golden State, but I can't really see it working out. This isn't to say Stokes can't have an impact, but her role in Vegas was perfect for her, as it allowed her to see the floor and provide some interior rim deterance, but also meant she never had to do much on the offensive side.
If the Valkyries ask Stokes to scale up on offense, can she do it? Considering she's shot under 40 percent in each of the last two seasons, I'd be very concerned that the answer is no .
Stefanie Dolson - Seattle Storm
Center Stefanie Dolson | Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images
From one situation where she was blocked by young bigs to another situation where she's arguably being blocked by even more young bigs.
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Stefanie Dolson's path to minutes got a little easier when the team announced on Tuesday that Ezi would miss 6-8 weeks with a foot injury, but assuming Malonga is a full go when healthy, the Storm will have her, Dolson, Dominique Malonga and rookie Awa Fam in the frontcourt.
It's tough to see Dolson winning the battle for minutes against those three players. Maybe her ability to stretch the floor will be useful in the early season, but it's hard to imagine Dolson having a sizable role down the stretch, especially with the Storm roster in rebuild mode , which should mean more emphasis on playing the young players.
Kia Nurse - Toronto Tempo
Guard Kia Nurse | Eric Canha-Imagn Images
Kia Nurse getting to head home to Canada to play for the Toronto Tempo is a great story, but I fear it won't have the storybook ending that Canadian basketball fans are hoping for.
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The issue is that Nurse is a very inefficient shooter, and there's no reason to think that improves in Toronto. She's shot over 40 percent just once - as a rookie on a Liberty team where she wasn't asked to do a ton - and her highest-volume season, the 2020 bubble campaign, saw her shooot just 27.3 percent on 11.9 attempts per game.
Even with her volume scaling down as she bounced around over the past three seasons, Nurse never hit the 40 percent mark, and now she'll likely see her most volume since 2021. I just can't see this working out, as great as it would be if it did.
Michaela Onyenwere - Washington Mystics
Forward Michaela Onyenwere | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
In 2021, Michaela Onyenwere won Rookie of the Year thanks to a historically weak group of rookies. Despite averaging just 8.6 points per game, Onyenwere received 47 of the 49 votes for the award. And that's basically been the only real highlight of her career. A year later, she averaged just 13.7 minutes per game on a new-look Liberty squad, and after a solid year in Phoenix, she's spent the last two seasons as a role player in Chicago .
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But now, Onyenwere is off to Washington, where she might have a chance to start. Despite that, her lack of consistent shooting makes her a candidate to lose minutes as the season goes along, and if the Mystics lose as many games as it looks like this roster can lose, Onyenwere could find herself buried in the rotation by midseason.
That's because she'll have rookies Angela Dugalic and Cotie McMahon pushing her for minutes, and while Onyenwere is probably a better WNBA player at the moment than both, the Mystics need to figure out by the end of 2026 if either player is in their long-term plans
This article was originally published on www.fansided.com as 5 WNBA players who will struggle with their new teams .
