How Jessica Shepard’s transformation from role player to MVP candidate has Wings in championship contention

There was a lot of attention on the Dallas Wings heading into this WNBA season, and understandably so. The oft-maligned franchise had a very busy offseason. They fired Chris Koclanes, their coach of just one year, and hired longtime University of South Florida coach Jose Fernandez. They won the draft lottery for the second straight year and selected UConn star Azzi Fudd with the No. 1 pick, reuniting her with her college teammate and girlfriend Paige Bueckers, the top pick in 2025. And they crushed it in free agency by re-signing franchise cornerstone Arike Ogunbowale and adding last year’s co-defensive player of the year, Alanna Smith.

The moves have paid off in spades. The Wings are 9-6, good enough for sixth place in the very crowded standings. It’s their best start to a season since the franchise moved to Dallas in 2016, and a noted improvement over the last two seasons in particular. They’ve already matched their win total from the 2024 season, when they went 9-31, and would match their 2025 total (10-34) with a victory in Saturday’s game against the Chicago Sky, which will air on CBS at 8:00 p.m. ET.  

Every offseason move helped contribute to this turnaround, but right now, one transaction stands out above the rest: The signing of forward Jessica Shepard, who served primarily in a reserve role with the Minnesota Lynx throughout her career. 

Shepard has always shown flashes of brilliance when healthy and was expected to be a good role player for the Wings this season.  But one-third of the way through the season, Shepard is averaging 13.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game, all significant improvements over her career averages of 7.6 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game. 

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Jack Maloney

This week, she was sixth in the first fan returns in WNBA All-Star voting despite never even sniffing an All-Star team in her career. CBS Sports’ Jack Maloney has Shepard as the clear frontrunner for the Most Improved Player award, but that honor almost sells her short. 

Shepard is shaping up not only to be the most important free agency addition of the summer and an All-Star starter, but a player that legitimately belongs on a short list of MVP candidates. And thanks to her, the Wings aren’t looking to just make the playoffs this year for the first time since 2023; they’re preparing to fight for the title.

Shepard’s MVP case

Shepard was a key part of the Notre Dame team that won the national championship in 2018, alongside her Wings teammate Ogunbowale. She was drafted to the Lynx in the second round in 2019 and stayed with Minnesota through the 2025 season, though she missed most of the 2019 and 2020 seasons with a torn ACL and sat out the 2024 season due to playing commitments in Italy. She clearly showed her talent during her first few years in the league, especially last season when she played a key role in keeping the Lynx at the top of the standings while Napheesa Collier was out with injury.

But as a full-time starter with the Wings this year, she has been a revelation. We’ve already gone through her raw numbers for the season, but let’s put them into perspective. 

She is first in the league in defensive rebounding (8.5), second in overall rebounding (11.5) and 10th in assists (5.6). She is second in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.82) and third in win shares (2.8). She is tied with Angel Reese for the most double-doubles in the league (10) and is the only player in the entire league to have a triple-double in 2026 — and she has two of them. One of those triple-doubles was a 22-point, 20-rebound, 11-assist masterclass in a win over the Las Vegas Aces at the end of May, making her just the second player in WNBA history with a 20-20-10 statline, joining Alyssa Thomas. 

These aren’t just great numbers for her relative to the rest of her career; they’re great numbers for anyone. And while four-time MVP A’ja Wilson is the clear frontrunner for yet another this year, Shepard is right there in a list of players on her heels — a list that includes her teammate Bueckers, Caitlin Clark, rookie phenom Olivia Miles, Breanna Stewart, Rhyne Howard and Kelsey Plum, among others. 

Stat	Value*	League ranking (as of 6/18)
Total Rebounding	11.5	2nd
Defensive Rebounding	8.5	1st
Offensive Rebounding	3.0	3rd
Assists	5.6	10th
Assist-to-Turnover Ratio	3.82	2nd
Field-Goal Percentage	58.7%	7th
PER	23.7	7th
Win Shares	2.8	3rd
Double-Doubles	10	1st
Triple-Doubles	2	1st

She’s not just making waves, she’s making history. Shepard is on track to be the first player in WNBA history to average 10-plus points, 10-plus rebounds and five-plus assists over a full season. While Thomas was excruciatingly close to this mark with 15.5 points, 7.9 assists and 9.9 rebounds in 2023 when she finished second in MVP voting, the only player to have averaged that for a season was Candace Parker, who averaged 19.4 points, 10.5 rebounds and 5.1 assists in 2015. However, Parker only played in 16 games that season, so it does not count as an official record.

“She’s been huge,” Fernandez told reporters of Shepard this week. “I think the way that she fits into the way that we wanted to play, her being able to initiate things as a ball handler and as a rebounder and starting our transition, but also the way that she really just enjoys how she’s being utilized on the offensive end. Again, she’s a player that can handle and pass it and you can be really creative with her offensively because of her unique skill set.”

Fernandez says Shepard’s level of play hasn’t been a surprise to him.

“It wasn’t a surprise for me, you know. I had a former player play with her in Italy,” he reported, adding that he also coached against her in college. “I think her European experience has translated to how she’s playing here, being able to distribute, DHO and zoom actions. It’s great to see her have the success that she’s having.”

Shepard facilitating is key to Wings’ ‘unselfish’ play

Just three games into the season, things were not looking so great for the Wings. After a close loss to the Lynx (which certainly doesn’t look as damaging in hindsight), Fernandez put the entire team on blast for “selfishness in this locker room” in a scathing press conference.

“You gotta look in the mirror and be accountable on how you played. And don’t get upset if you think that you should have played more, or you didn’t play enough, or you didn’t get the shots that you think you should have gotten,” Fernandez reported. “Really good teams, they don’t give a shit about that.”

There was public outcry that Fernandez’s harsh comments would alienate the team, but it did the opposite — the Wings won six of their next eight. The Wings still have not lost back-to-back games since the rant. And while there have been some low points — a blow-out loss to the Lynx last week and an embarrassing second-quarter collapse to the Golden State Valkyries in a loss on Wednesday night, among others — there have also been moments where the Wings have looked like legitimate championship contenders. 

The Wings have a 91-76 road win over the New York Liberty and two victories over the defending champion Aces on their resume, including a 96-66 drubbing on Monday night in Dallas.

The Wings’ stats are pretty consistently middle-of-the-pack in all categories, except for one: assists. They are currently second in the league in assists per game, second in assist percentage and assist ratio and first in assist-to-turnover ratio. That is a patently unselfish stat, one that shows how much this team has grown this season.

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Jack Maloney

It also showcases the importance of having a forward who can facilitate like Shepard can. Not only are the Wings just the second team in the league (along with the Aces) to have two players in the top 10 in assists (Bueckers is seventh with 6.0 per game), but Shepard is one of just two forwards in the top 25 in the league in assists. (Thomas, a forward for the Phoenix Mercury, leads all players with 8.3 per game.) 

Her emergence as a consistent, all-around threat has lifted the Wings’ ceiling exponentially. Bueckers is the generational guard talent the Wings are building around, Fudd is a phenomenal defender and 3-point shooter who is looking more comfortable each game and Ogunbowale is as electric as any player in the league. But Shepard is, according to Aces’ coach Becky Hammon, the team’s quarterback. 

“I look at [Shepard] a little bit like a Draymond Green in the sense of just that playmaking ability for other people,” Hammon reported. “A really good passer, good defender, just a really good basketball player, does all those things to help your team win.”

When told of Hammon’s comments, Shepard was quick to point out that she believed the comparison sold her short. 

“I think he’s a player that’s been champion many times for a reason. He’s willing to do whatever the team needs to win. So, in comparison to that aspect of his game. I think other aspects, maybe I can score a little better than him,” she reported, before quickly adding, “But I like you, Draymond.”