Dallas Wings Diaspora is a series tracking where top Wings players from the last nine seasons (since the franchise moved to Dallas) have wound up.
Player movement is a fact of life in the WNBA, but the Wings have seen a lot of players come through their organization before going on to excel elsewhere.
This series explores the careers of players like Skylar Diggins, Allisha Gray, Satou Sabally, Kayla Thornton, and others who once called the Dallas Wings their WNBA home.
Skylar Diggins
[Photo Credit: Susan Lesch]
Before Dallas:
Skylar Diggins‘ 2013 WNBA Draft class was STACKED.
Brittney Griner went #1 to the Phoenix Mercury. Elena Delle Donne went #2 to the Chicago Sky. The Tulsa Shock selected Skylar Diggins with the #3 overall pick.
In her second season, 2014, Skylar was the team’s leading scorer at 20.1ppg, which was good for 2nd in the league behind the one and only Maya Moore. She won the 2014 Most Improved Player Award and was First Team All-WNBA.
[Skylar Diggins lights up the Minnesota Lynx for 26 points in 2015]
Arrived in Dallas:
After the 2015 season, the franchise’s majority owner, billionaire (via American Fidelity insurance) Bill Cameron, decided to move the team to Arlington, Texas. The Wings’ first season in Dallas was also Greg Bibb’s first season as the team’s General Manager.
Skylar Diggins arrived in Dallas as a two-time WNBA All Star and a young leader entering her prime.
Career in Dallas:
Diggins would play three years in Dallas, 2016-2019. Although Diggins averaged 17+ ppg for two of these seasons, the team struggled, going 42-60 and never making it beyond the first round of the playoffs.
In 2018, Australian center Liz Cambage (who was the Tulsa Shock’s leading scorer Skylar’s rookie year in 2013) came and went, playing one year for Dallas and then forcing a trade before the 2019 season.
Diggins missed the 2019 season after giving birth to her first child.
She then announced her intention not to return to Dallas for 2020 season: “‘I don’t plan on playing in Dallas next year,” Diggins-Smith told the AP in January of 2020, but “I’m happy to be playing in this league and I want to play.”
Left Dallas:
In response to Diggins’ request to leave, the Wings used their “core” designation on her, restricting her free agency rights.
Ultimately, the Wings traded Diggins to the Phoenix Mercury for one of the Dallas front office’s favorite assets: draft capital.
Dallas received the #5 and #7 pick in the 2020 draft and the Mercury’s 2021 first-round draft pick in exchange for the player that GM Greg Bibb acknowledged “ha[d] been the face of the organization and most prominent player on the roster.”
What did the Wings gets for Skylar Diggins:
After Diggins’ departure, Dallas used the picks they acquired in the trade to select:
- 2020 #5 pick: Bella Alarie (no longer in the league)
- 2020 #7 pick: Ty Harris (traded to Connecticut, now back on Dallas)
- The Mercury’s 2021 First Round Pick, which Dallas traded to the Chicago Sky for Astou Ndour-Fall, who played for the Wings in 2020 and was waived by the team following that season.
Diggins’ career after Dallas:
Diggins played three seasons for the Mercury, 2020-2022. She averaged 18+ppg, was a two-time All Star, and made the All WNBA 1st/2nd team each season.
[Skylar Diggins scores 35 points against the Seattle Storm in 2022]
In 2021, Phoenix made the WNBA finals, but lost to the Chicago Sky. In the off-season, Phoenix fired coach Sandy Brondello (who was hired by the New York Liberty).
In 2022, the Phoenix Mercury were caught up in a geopolitical nightmare when Mercury player Brittney Griner was imprisoned in Russia. BG’s absence and the extreme uncertainty around her future weighed on her teammates.
Skylar led the team in scoring (19.7ppg) but at points there visible tensions between Diggins and Diana Taurasi. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Diggins described a deteriorating relationship with then-coach Vanessa Nygard and acknowledged that complications related to her second pregnancy led to her missing the end of the Mercury’s 2022 season.
In 2023, she sat out the WNBA season and gave birth to her second child.
In 2024, she signed a 2-year deal with her 3rd WNBA team, the Seattle Storm.
Conclusion:
Skylar Diggins is one of a very small number of WNBA players who have given birth to more than one child in the midst of her playing career.
She is not alone in feeling that the WNBA does not adequately support mothers, and she describes the league’s ongoing CBA negotiations as an opportunity for the W to improve in this area:
“We’re 144 different people in this league and we prioritize different things. For me, I’m going to be talking about more benefits for moms. I’m going to be talking about more benefits for moms. When you switch teams and move to a different city, trying to find resources; childcare, a pediatrician, a school, playdates.”
– Skylar Diggins, in Vanity Fair
Diggins’ current team, the Seattle Storm, are 5th in league standings with 10-7 record (same as the Atlanta Dream).
Diggins continues to be one of the WNBA’s best players and one of the league’s fiercest competitors.
[Skylar Diggins has 24 points and 14 assists for the Storm]
In 2025, she’s averaging 18.9ppg (7th in the league) and 6.1apg (4th in the league).
She will likely earn her 7th WNBA All-Star invitation and other individual accolades, but the biggest question left to be answered in Diggins’ career is whether she will win a WNBA championship, or go down as one of the best players in the W to never win one.
Thanks for reading!
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