DHJ Quick Take: How Jessica Shepard Powers the Dallas Wings’ Top-Ranked Offense
The Dallas Wings own the WNBA’s best offensive rating through eight games, and head coach Jose Fernandez is still building around Jessica Shepard, a versatile big who can start the offense herself.
- How good is the Dallas Wings’ offense? Dallas owns the WNBA’s best offensive rating at 112.7, leads the league in assists, and ranks among its best from 3-point range at 37.2%, a year after finishing at the bottom of the category.
- Why is Jessica Shepard so important to it? Shepard is averaging 13.0 points, 11.4 rebounds, and 6.5 assists, and against Las Vegas she posted the first 22-point, 20-rebound, 10-assist triple-double in WNBA history. Her knack for grabbing a rebound and pushing the ball lets Dallas attack before defenses get set.
- How rare is her playmaking? Shepard ranks fourth in the WNBA in assists at 6.5 per game, the only center near the top of the leaderboard, trailing only Caitlin Clark, Alyssa Thomas, and Chelsea Gray.
- What are the Wings still adding? Fernandez has held back part of a deep playbook, with Arike Ogunbowale pointing to second actions and Fernandez to a faster pace as the next steps for an offense that already leads the league.
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Wings own the WNBA’s top-rated offense through eight games, and they are not done building it. Head coach Jose Fernandez is still adding to the playbook, and much of the next layer runs through Jessica Shepard, a versatile big who can rebound at an elite level and start the offense herself.
Dallas (5-3) has the WNBA’s best offensive rating at 112.7 points per 100 possessions. The Wings lead the league in assists, post its top assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.99, and rank among its best from deep at 37.2%, a year after finishing at the bottom of that category. They have done it at one of the league’s slowest paces, a number Fernandez wants to push up. Per Synergy Sports, the offense rates in the 93rd percentile leaguewide in both spot-up and transition play, the two areas where Dallas does most of its scoring.
Fernandez said the team’s shooting is doing more than padding the scoreboard, arguing that the threat of it bends defenses everywhere else on the floor.
“Huge. Because if you shoot the ball well from three, it opens up driving lanes and it opens up the post,” Fernandez said. “But I think we got some really good three-point shooters, and I think the shots that we’re taking are really good shots from three as well.”
Jessica Shepard as an Initiator
Shepard is averaging 13.0 points, 11.4 rebounds, and 6.5 assists while shooting 56.8% from the field, and against Las Vegas she became the first player in WNBA history to post a 22-20-10 game.
“I’m a very versatile post player who can do a lot of things,” Shepard said before the Aces game. “So I think it’s just every night figuring out what the team needs, whether that’s scoring, rebounding, passing, whatever it is, and just doing whatever I can do to help the team win. That’s my focus.”
The bar was set before she had played a game in Dallas. Asked in training camp about the offseason addition, Fernandez pointed to the all-around production she had flashed in Minnesota and the kind of season he thought was in front of her.
“She had a triple-double with Minnesota last year, and I think she can get multiple of those in a season. I’m really excited for her, I think this is a great place for her,” Fernandez said then.
Paige Bueckers set it just as high in camp. Running through what the Wings’ offseason additions brought to the roster, she landed on the forward she expected to make the offense hum.
“We have a lot of versatility offensively and defensively, shooting, length, aggressive defensive mentality. We have a Defensive Player of the Year-type presence, and Jess is one of the best playmakers in the league at the four,” Bueckers said.
What makes those lines possible is the role Fernandez has carved out for her. He said her ability to grab a rebound and go turns the Wings into a transition team before the defense is set, which collapses the usual sequence of outlet, advance, and initiate into one motion.
“If four or five gets it off the glass, they’re a two and three and they’re starting their offense in transition. So it fits her,” Fernandez said. “So now we’ve got to continue to add things offensively. When she does get it off the glass, what can we get into? Because then people start to take away those first and second options, so we’re looking forward there.”
The numbers back it up. Shepard is scoring 1.30 points per possession in transition this season, an elite clip, and 1.10 points per possession overall, in the 86th percentile leaguewide, per Synergy Sports. She does most of her damage inside, with nearly three-quarters of her attempts coming at the rim, where she finishes at 67.9%.
Shepard has spent her career bouncing between the WNBA and overseas, changing teams and systems roughly every six months. She said that constant turnover has made adjusting on the fly part of who she is as a player.
“I’m the type of player that gets put in a lot of systems, but every six months I’m playing with a different team, so you just find a way to adapt yourself,” Shepard said. “I’m someone who likes to win, so just doing whatever the team needs each game to win. So just adjusting and adapting as best as you can.”
Maddy Siegrist said the part of Shepard’s game that travels under the radar is the one that ties everything together.
“I think she’s just an unbelievable passer. I think her passing is extremely underrated,” Siegrist said. “Obviously she’s a great scorer and a tremendous rebounder, but to be a five and have as many assists as she’s having every single night is extremely impressive.”
The leaderboard backs her up. Shepard ranks fourth in the WNBA in assists at 6.5 per game, the only center near the top of the list. She trails only Caitlin Clark, Alyssa Thomas, and Chelsea Gray, and sits ahead of guards like Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, and Bueckers.
Arike Ogunbowale said the value of Shepard initiating is in the time it saves, with the offense starting a beat earlier than it would running through a guard.
“Obviously traditionally the post rebounds and gets it to the point guard or gets it to a guard to push the break. But when you can take out that couple seconds of waiting to find a guard and she can just go, we can get into our spots and she can initiate the offense,” Ogunbowale said. “That’s definitely another angle of attack that we have that maybe not a lot of teams do.”
Ogunbowale’s feel for Shepard predates Dallas. The two won an NCAA championship together at Notre Dame in 2018, and that history shows up in the trust between them.
The approach works two ways. When Dallas pushes off a Shepard rebound, the Wings can attack before the defense matches up, creating early mismatches without spending shot clock on screening and reading. When opponents do get back and set their matchups, Shepard bringing the ball up can pull a help defender higher up the floor. That frees the Wings’ highest-gravity scorers to screen for one another and build an advantage early in the clock, before Dallas even runs its early-offense staples like Pistol, drag screens, and double staggers.
That played out against Las Vegas. The Wings repeatedly drew Aces forward NaLyssa Smith into actions that forced her to defend in space, with strong results. When Bueckers and Azzi Fudd screened for each other and occupied the weak side, Shepard could attack a favorable matchup off the dribble, with the time and spacing to work to her spots and establish inside position to finish near the basket. Dallas scored a season-high 22 points on cuts in that win, per Synergy Sports.
The ripple effect reaches Bueckers. With Shepard able to bring the ball up and initiate, Bueckers faces less full-court pressure and fewer early blitzes, keeping her fresher to attack when the Wings need her aggression most.
No one on the roster plays off Shepard more than Bueckers, who runs much of the offense beside her. Bueckers said the partnership has only gotten smoother as their reps together pile up.
“We’re starting to get more reps with each other. We’re starting to learn each other a little bit more. Jess is a really good playmaker. She’s very unselfish and makes the right read,” Bueckers told Dallas Hoops Journal. “She’s also a threat to score, so it’s really easy to play with her and play off of her, and we have great communication.”
Dallas Wings Still Adding Layers
Even as the league’s top-rated offense, the Wings are installing more. Ogunbowale said Fernandez has deliberately held back a chunk of the playbook, doling it out a piece at a time.
“And he still has more to put in. We just put little stuff in day by day,” Ogunbowale said. “He’s obviously not giving us everything right now because it’s a long season. Maybe there’s stuff that we’re gonna put in, hopefully when we get to the playoffs, and then we can add some more stuff there. But throughout the season, listening to what he has and putting new things in so we’re not predictable. He has a deep playbook.”
Some of that growth is in the details. Shepard said the post group studied film and zeroed in on screening as an area where small adjustments could free up the guards.
“We’ve kinda watched video after the last couple games, and we know screening is an area we need to be better in as post players,” Shepard said before facing the Mystics. “So just putting an emphasis on it, holding the screen a second longer to get the guards open and also get yourself open too.”
The bigger target, Fernandez and Ogunbowale said, is getting deeper into possessions before the offense settles. Ogunbowale pointed to second actions as the area with the most room to grow.
“Definitely second action. I think all teams in the league are pretty good defending first action,” Ogunbowale said after Sunday’s practice. “But I think when we swing the ball side to side, there’s always gonna be a breakdown. So if we can get a switch of the side once or twice throughout a possession, I think we’ll be okay.”
Fernandez framed it the same way, tying how efficient the Wings are to how far into the offense they get before putting up a shot.
“If we can get to our spots and then get into our secondary actions. When we get great rim runs and the slots are filled and the corners are filled, and then we can get into the actions that we want to get to, we’re really, really efficient,” Fernandez said. “When we just try to score on that first side and it’s not the best one, sometimes the percentages go down a little bit.”
It all ties back to tempo. Dallas has built the league’s best offense at one of its slowest paces, and Fernandez believes there is another level available if the Wings get out and run more often.
“Even though we’re playing so well offensively, we need to play at a faster pace,” Fernandez said.
The Wings open Commissioner’s Cup play against the Seattle Storm on Monday at College Park Center.
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