Dallas Wings Select Oregon’s Satou Sabally, Among Others, In 2020 WNBA Draft

The first-round of the 2020 WNBA held few surprises. As expected, the New Your Liberty drafted University of Oregon standout Sabrina Ionescu with the first overall pick. From there, the next three familiar names projected to go in the top four did so. With three of the top seven picks, the Dallas Wings made their presence known and have to be feeling pretty good about their outcome Friday night.  

Dallas held the No.’s 2, 5 and 7 first-round picks coming into the evening. Initially, the Wings also had the No. 9 as well, but traded it away to the Liberty earlier in the week as part of a three-team trade. In that trade, they also dealt the No. 15 in the second-round in the trade, leaving them the No. 21 pick as their sole selection outside of the first round.

With the No. 2 pick, the Wings selected Ionescu’s teammate, Satou Sabally, as many expected. Thanks to her German heritage, the 6-foot-4 forward with an adept outside game is already drawing comparisons to Dirk Nowitzki, who played his entire 21-year career with the Dallas Mavericks. In her three seasons with the Ducks, Sabally averaged 14.5 points, 5.6 rebounds, two assists and 1.2 steals in 91 career games.

Nowitzki even took to Twitter to welcome her to Dallas.

At No.5, Dallas turned to the Ivy League, taking Princeton forward Bella Alarie. In four seasons, the 6-foot-4 Alarie averaged 16.1 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.3 steals and 2.3 blocks in 97 career games. She broke Princeton’s per game scoring average record during her junior year when she averaged 23 points per contest.

Rounding out their first-round picks, the Wings selected Tyasha Harris from the University of South Carolina at No. 7. The 5-foot-10 guard averaged 9.9 points, three rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.7 steals in 116 total games during her four years with the Gamecocks. During her senior season, she averaged 12 points while shooting 43% overall and 38.6% from behind the three-point arc.

With their final selection of the evening, the Wings kept their German theme going. They drafted Germany’s Luisa Geiselsöder with the No. 21 pick. The 6-foot-3, 20-year-old center most recently competed at the 2019 FIBA U20 Women’s European Championship last August where she averaged 12.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.3 assists.

All four players have also competed internationally in FIBA. Sabally and Geiselsöder are members of the German national team and Alarie and Harris are part of the Team USA program. Both played for Team USA at the 2017 FIBA U19 World Cup and 2019 Pan American Games where they took home Silver Medals.

After watching two All-Stars walk away from the organization in the course of a calendar year, the Wings are in the midst of rebuilding. Coming into this year’s draft, Dallas needed to infuse its roster with young, talented players. It did just that. If they’re lucky, one might just turn out to be a star in her own right.