Stephanie Soares and Lou Lopez Sénéchal Preseason Scouting Report
Tracking Dallas's 2023 first-round draft picks who did not play last season
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The Dallas Wings left the 2023 WNBA Draft with four first-round draft picks, but only one of them, No. 3 overall pick Maddy Siegrist, actually played any minutes for the team last season. No. 4 overall pick Stephanie Soares had suffered an ACL tear back in January while still playing for Iowa State, and it was widely known that she would not be ready until the 2024 season. No. 5 overall pick Lou Lopez Sénéchal also missed the whole season with a knee injury after initially being expected to return in late June or early July. Finally, No. 11 overall pick Abby Meyers was cut during training camp, ultimately receiving a few stints with the Washington Mystics on training camp contracts.
While WNBA fans did not see Soares or Lopez Sénéchal on the court last season, both have played competitive basketball since their NCAA careers ended, and both are expected to appear for the Wings this season. Playing against professional competition gives prognosticators a different and often better frame of reference for these players than NCAA competition. It is especially important for these two players with relatively unheralded starts to their college careers; Soares played four seasons at an NAIA school, The Master’s University, and Lopez Sénéchal spent her first four seasons at Fairfield in the MAAC. As such, observers can gain valuable insight by examining those players’ more recent play, with both playing FIBA competition and Lopez Sénéchal also playing in several different club competitions in Europe. Here is an examination of how both players have performed in these more recent contexts.
Stephanie Soares joined Brazil’s national team in February for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament. Brazil was the host nation, welcoming Australia, Serbia, and Germany, and lost three close games. Soares, who played only 37 minutes across the three games, was limited to a bench role behind established WNBA stretch post player Damiris Dantas and this year’s No. 3 WNBA Draft selection Kamilla Cardoso. More interestingly, she spent most of her minutes bumped from her natural position of center to the power forward spot playing alongside either Cardoso or WNBA veteran center Erika de Souza.
One of the highlights of Soares’s pre-draft projection was her potential to space the floor as a post player and as a center in particular. Averaging 4.9 3-point attempts per 40 minutes and converting 30.6% of them in her half-season of play at Iowa State, it was clear that Soares had a certain amount of confidence in her outside shot but less certain that it would be a consistently efficient option at the next level.
With this in mind, it is somewhat concerning that Soares only attempted three 3-pointers in her 37 minutes of game action. However, this does not mean that she does not hunt for her own outside shot. The one 3-pointer that Soares made, creeping toward the top of the key while a pick-and-roll takes place on the opposite side of the court and swishing it with Cayla George’s hand in her face, shows just how dangerous she can be on the perimeter.
Being able to get open and hit shots even outside of the primary action is integral to active floor spacing. When a 6-foot-6 center can do that, it has the potential to be game-breaking.
Even when she does not ultimately get the ball, she still looks for opportunities to shoot. For example, after running the dribble hand-off with Débora Costa here, she lifts into a better passing lane as Costa runs a pick-and-roll with de Souza.
Perhaps surprisingly, Soares only attempted one 3-pointer out of the pick-and-pop across her 37 minutes, this close miss:
Soares was not substantially more aggressive operating inside the arc. In fact, she attempted fewer 2-point attempts than 3-point attempts, only mustering two, and did not get to the free-throw line a single time. Moreover, Soares actually attempted fewer field-goal attempts per minute than any of her teammates who received game action. As strong as FIBA competition is, it still sits a fair step behind the WNBA, and this limited volume would be worrisome even in the WNBA itself.
There is some hope that Soares may be able to operate a bit off the dribble, as she does attacking this closeout on the left wing.
UCLA power forward Angela Dugalić may not stand out as a clear WNBA-level athlete, but Soares being able to attack an opposing power forward off the dribble at this level of competition and get all the way to the rim is an encouraging sign. Pump-faking and going against Dallas Wings teammate Satou Sabally, however, is rather impressive, even if the drive itself looks a bit less fluid.
What makes this possibility particularly enticing is that it nicely plays off Soares’s potential as a shooting threat. If Soares even approaches her potential as a shooter, defenders will have to guard her closely and run her off the 3-point line just as Sabally does here, opening up opportunities like this one. However, the limited volume of attempts from this international tournament could suggest that this skill remains a work in progress.
This play attacking the closeout (from former second-round WNBA Draft pick Luisa Geiselsӧder) from the corner may not result in a basket, but it provides an example of Soares making a pass on the move, dumping the ball off to a sealing de Souza.
Another action where Soares showcases her perimeter passing chops is dribble hand-off action. An example can be found on this play where she throws a nice assist when Carolina Martins back cuts her overplaying defender.
Dribble hand-offs are not the only scenarios where Soares has made snazzy passes from the perimeter. In this situation after Brazil has broken a press, Soares makes a nice, quick entry pass to Cardoso, who has sealed her defender excellently.
This particular play is a positive indicator of her ability to play alongside other interior scoring threats. This is especially important given how crowded Dallas’s post rotation is.
Overall, Soares’s offensive game seems even more explicitly perimeter-based at the professional level than it was at Iowa State. Because of her weaknesses at the defensive end, she will need to take an aggressive role in the offense to justify consistent playing time, something which these games with Brazil did not manifest. The impressive passing flashes provide a glimpse into how Soares can be employed as a versatile offensive weapon, but she must play assertively and shoot much more often than five times in 37 minutes.
Despite playing a generally more athletically demanding position next to another rim protector, Soares still typically defended the pick-and-roll in a conservative, rim-focused coverage when Brazil was not playing in a zone. She will presumably continue to do so at the WNBA level. These types of coverages put a lot of responsibility on the screener’s defender, who is required to defend two opponents at least temporarily. Soares had some moments in this tournament where she did not master this balancing act. For example, on this pick-and-roll on the left wing, Soares releases to the wing before her teammate Débora Costa has recovered, giving high-level scorer Yvonne Anderson a free lane to the rim.
Note that while the original screener, Dugalić, is an effective 3-point shooter, she has set an off-ball screen for Tina Krajisnik, who is much less of an outside scoring threat, to occupy the wing. In other words, not only is Soares leaving an effective scorer open in a high-leverage position with a live dribble, she is doing so in order to cover someone who is not an immediate threat.
She may also be vulnerable in more direct one-on-one situations. It may not be entirely fair to debit Soares too heavily for getting faked out by an extremely quick post player faking a dribble hand-off, but Ezi Magbegor leaves her in the dust on this drive from the high post.
On a more positive note, Soares picks up Sabally on this pick-and-roll near the level of the screen and stays with her well enough to contest her at the rim even if Cardoso had not come over to rotate.
Even if Dallas expects Soares to remain in those below-the-level coverages, she at least has enough mobility to avail herself decently well there when she times the situation well.
The important context for all of these clips is that these were Soares’s first competitive minutes in more than a year, playing for a team whose first practice came five days before its first tournament game, its matchup with Serbia. Furthermore, the sample is still only 37 minutes, less than a full game’s worth of action. Despite that, it seems unlikely that Soares will supplant Teaira McCowan or Kalani Brown for significant minutes at the center position for the Dallas Wings this season. Insofar as Soares is likely to receive minutes this season when the team’s post rotation is at full strength, it will presumably be in cases where coach Latricia Trammell specifically wants to play 5-out. While the presence of Natasha Howard may suggest a more defensively versatile option for such 5-out lineups, Trammell seemed reluctant to do so last season, only playing Howard without McCowan or Brown for 20.3% of her possessions last season. The sample of Soares at power forward seems intriguing in theory but does not jump out as translatable to the WNBA level based on the defensive footage, although it does speak positively for her athleticism. Ultimately, Soares must be a much more aggressive offensive player who makes good on the flashes she has shown at that end in order to earn consistent minutes in the short or medium term.
Lou Lopez Sénéchal split the 2023-24 international season between two different teams. She spent the 2023 half of the season playing in the Czech Republic and EuroCup Women with Zabiny Brno. There, she played alongside former North Carolina State star center and second-round WNBA draft pick Elissa Cunane and many members of the Czech national team, including power forward Natalie Stoupalova, its leading scorer at EuroBasket Women 2023. After Zabiny Brno was eliminated from EuroCup Women, Lopez Sénéchal moved on to Hozono Global Jairis in the Spanish league, where her most notable teammates to a North American audience included another recent North Carolina State player in shooting guard Aislinn Konig and former WNBA stretch post player Abby Bishop. She also appeared in two games for the French national team during November’s rounds of the EuroBasket Women 2025 Qualifiers, but she was not on its more veteran roster for February’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments.
Lopez Sénéchal’s most translatable skill has always been her 3-point jump shot, so it should be no surprise that more of her offense has migrated beyond the arc as a professional. Her highest 3-point rate at the college level, the proportion of her scoring attempts that were 3-point attempts, was 36.4% in her junior season at Fairfield, while her “COVID year” season at UConn saw her record a functionally identical 36.2% mark. Between EuroCup Women, the Czech league, the Spanish league, and her two games with the French national team, she put together a 3-point rate of 40.6%. Of course, the important number is that she made 37.4% of her 3-pointers, a lower mark than any of her NCAA seasons after her freshman year at Fairfield but still a respectable number. It is worth noting that that percentage is dragged down by a 6-for-33 (18.2%) mark in the Czech league, by far the weakest competition in the sample.
This statistical shift happened not because Lopez Sénéchal is shooting more 3-pointers but instead because she is doing less inside the arc. In those same competitions, she shot 6.0 3-point attempts per 40 minutes, perfectly in line with the volume numbers from every year of her college career except for her freshman season, generally ranking around the 80th percentile in the nation. However, her 7.3 2-point attempts per 40 minutes and 2.9 free-throw attempts per 40 minutes are both lower than any of the figures from her five college seasons. The difference in her 2-point attempt frequency is particularly stark as her lowest college number across any season was 9.1 attempts per 40 minutes, her sophomore year at Fairfield.
Teams still clearly regard Lopez Sénéchal as a deadly shooter. For example, here she comes off an elevator doors out-of-bounds play, a classic action designed for great shooters. She serves as the inbounder, a notoriously dangerous player for defenses to monitor, and draws a foul on the resulting 3-point shot.
Of course, Lopez Sénéchal will shoot 3-pointers off less heavily scripted actions. Here in semi-transition, she runs to the open space at the top of the key and drains the shot as former Oregon and Cal Poly post player Sierra Campisano closes out.
After throwing an entry pass to Cunane here, she V-cuts and moves into a 3-point shot, canning a shot off good movement.
On this semi-transition play with the French national team, she makes a point of getting deep into the corner, taking the skip pass from point guard Romane Bernies and confidently swishing the 3-pointer.
That being said, Lopez Sénéchal leaves opportunities to shoot more 3-pointers on the table in similar situations. Notably, there are instances where her not shooting off the catch slows the pace of her team’s half-court offense. On this play, she comes off an off-ball screen, catches on the wing, and stops, never firing the 3-pointer directly nor attacking off the catch. Instead, she waits for a ball screen and misses a 20-foot pull-up 2-point jumper, former Providence wing Jovana Nogic having recovered to contest the shot.
There are other times when those mid-range jumpers represent missed opportunities. An off-ball action has left Lauren Scherf, a relatively slow center, switched on to Lopez Sénéchal. While the floor balance is not aligned for her to drive to the basket, nor is it necessarily her fault that the pass gets to her before she has reached the 3-point arc, it seems telling that Lopez Sénéchal opts for a 20-foot side-step mid-range shot rather than attacking more aggressively, either to get to the rim or to shoot a step-back 3-pointer.
This play also points to some occasional hesitance with regards to attacking the basket.
First, on the off-ball action, Lopez Sénéchal’has the option to cut either toward the rim or the 3-point arc. While the passing lane to the rim is not wide open, it still is telling that she opts for the path of less resistance toward the corner. Once she catches the ball, she hesitates and then makes several moves that neither take her anywhere nor effectively set her up to use the screen that Stoupalova is coming to set. This also annihilates the offensive momentum created by the off-ball action. Ultimately, she gets off balance and slips, turning the ball over.
Lopez Sénéchal’s role in the offense will presumably continue to shrink at the WNBA level, especially if she shares the floor with Arike Ogunbowale for any significant length of time. As such, coaches will be less likely to have patience for her self-creating jump shots that can take the air out of possessions. She is also more likely to get her touches off of advantages that other players have already created, windows that can narrow or close outright if complementary players hesitate when making decisions. Quick decisions, whether they involve shooting, moving the ball, or attacking closeouts, enhance offense and help create efficient shots. This attack curling off a Cunane off-ball screen shows that she can attack quickly and get good results, like a pair of free throws - she just needs to do so consistently.
At the end of the day, the most immediate option will be her 3-point shot. She has hit 37% of her 3-point attempts at the professional level and was a career 40% 3-point shooter in college, exceptionally efficient for any offense.
Karlie Samuelson might represent a compelling point of reference for Lopez Sénéchal’s continued role as a professional, not just in the WNBA but in overseas competition as well. Also an extremely accurate shooter, Samuelson had a much more circuitous path to the WNBA, going undrafted and not playing at least 100 minutes in a WNBA season until 2021, the fifth season that she was eligible to play in the league. However, because of the differences in their career paths, Samuelson was actually the same age in 2021 that Lopez Sénéchal is now, and she actually spent her 2020-21 international season also playing in the Spanish league. Consequently, there can be some valuable information gleaned from comparing the two players statistically. (Only the specific subsets of competitions that are the most comparable are included below because of the stark differences in quality between different competitions, even ones that involve the same teams.)
While Lopez Sénéchal is generally ahead of where Samuelson was at the same age, especially in terms of versatility inside the arc, it remains to be seen how functional and efficient these other abilities are. Furthermore, while Samuelson still has a greater proportion of her offense coming from beyond the 3-point arc, the significant difference between her current 2-point field-goal percentage and Lopez Sénéchal’s cannot be ignored. Furthermore, Samuelson’s superb assist-to-turnover ratio compared to Lopez Sénéchal’s lackluster mark point to Samuelson’s skill as a connective passer, an important element of serving as a role player, whereas it remains a weakness for Lopez Sénéchal.
There should definitely be a WNBA role for Lopez Sénéchal, but she may not play an especially large role in terms of minutes or offensive responsibility until she makes adjustments like the ones suggested above. As good as Samuelson is, she only ranked in the 69th percentile in 3-point attempts per 40 minutes last season, with players like Rachel Banham and Sami Whitcomb attempting notably more 3-point attempts. Even if Lopez Sénéchal does not end up shooting as dynamically as those smaller guards do at the WNBA level, it seems that she can shoot more often with some slight adjustments. She also has time to make those improvements, and her relatively inexperience suggests that she may occupy a steeper, more fruitful region of the developmental curve than her age might suggest.1
These may not seem like the most glowing or optimistic evaluations of Dallas’s redshirt rookies, but Dallas has positioned itself well moving forward at their respective positions in case they fail to live up to their pre-draft hype. Between Sabally sliding down to the small forward position effectively, acquiring Brown on a mid-season hardship contract before re-signing her this offseason, and drafting Jacy Sheldon with the No. 5 pick in this year’s WNBA Draft, Dallas has made sustainable moves and adjustments that work to fill some of the holes that Soares and Lopez Sénéchal might have been expected to fill long-term. Furthermore, both players still have clear potential as they continue to acquire reps at higher levels, especially with Lopez Sénéchal’s present ability as a long-range shooter helping her crack the line-up at least through Satou Sabally's projected injury return in August. In short, Dallas should be in good shape as a team, no matter what value the team ultimately generates from the No. 4 and No. 5 picks in the 2023 WNBA Draft.
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In addition to playing all four of her NCAA seasons at Stanford, Samuelson had already played two seasons of EuroLeague Women and one season of EuroCup Women when she was as old as Lopez Sénéchal is now.
I appreciate your article. But with just one pre-season game (played last night), and a limited roster of 11 or 12, it is IMO, a 99.8% certainty Latricia Trammel will cut Lou Lopez-Senechal without her ever stepping on the court for the Wings. A real shame.