While Kelsey Plum was out with an ankle injury for the past week, Sparks coach Lynne Roberts called her the “head of the snake” of the team’s offense.
Plum, who entered the night leading the WNBA in scoring, netted 27 points but couldn’t save the Sparks from a fourth-quarter collapse and a 104-96 loss to the Dallas Wings at Crypto.com Arena on Friday night.
The Sparks’ offense looked better, but it had no answers for the three-headed attack of Arike Ogunbowale, Paige Bueckers and Jessica Shepherd, who spearheaded the Wings’ 63% shooting effort in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
The Sparks have lost three consecutive games for the first time since last June. They lost to Connecticut on May 30 before a poor offensive outing against Las Vegas on Tuesday. With Plum, they eclipsed their 69-point total from that game by midway through the third quarter Friday.
But Dallas’ offense was too much for the WNBA’s worst defense.
The Sparks led by as much as nine in the second quarter but surrendered the lead late in the quarter as the Wings shot 55% to cut the lead to one by halftime.
The Sparks led 78-77 going into the fourth after a back-and-forth third quarter, but Dallas went on a 15-5 run to lead by eight. It was the only cold quarter for the Sparks, who scored just 18 points, with more than half of their offense coming from Plum.
It was a two-point game with under two minutes to play when Ogunbowale collected a rebound off her own shot to give the Wings a two-possession lead before Plum missed a three-pointer and a free throw.
Nneka Ogwumike notched a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds while Ariel Atkins scored 16 points.
Ogunbowale scored a game-high 30 points while Bueckers posted a career-high 14 assists and Shepherd had 22 points and 15 rebounds.
Wings guard Odyssey Sims left the court in a wheelchair in the second quarter after she twisted her left ankle coming down from a rebound attempt; she didn’t return. In the fourth, Aziaha James had to be carried off by her teammates after she got hit hard by an Ogwumike screen.
The Sparks will host the expansion Portland Fire (6-6) on Sunday, who lost a tight game against Phoenix on Friday night.
The flying wing with the longest wingspan (red arrow in the image at the top of the article), which some have dubbed “WZ-X,” and what we refer to as “The Monster of Malan,” is parked on the main apron next to the runway. The very large flying wing has a span of approximately 173 feet — roughly the width of a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. You can read more about this impressive aircraft in our previous coverage here and here. Other details about its true designation or its manufacturer remain unknown.
The second large flying wing (green arrow) is seen in the image sitting outside a hangar that is part of the sprawling new high-security facility on the opposite side of the complex. It features a ‘cranked kite’ planform with a wingspan of approximately 137 feet, although it would appear to have a significantly higher gross weight and likely lower operating ceiling than its wider stablemate. Based on our previous analysis, this variant is suited for the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) role, but could also work as a supersized unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) capable of performing very long-range heavy strike missions.
China has shown off a very large number of fighter-drone concepts, very loosely similar to the U.S. Collaborative Combat Aircraft initiative, in recent years. A Chinese military parade in 2025 was really Beijing’s major public thrust into this area of advanced fighter-like drone development. Since then, testing of at least one configuration has been ramped up considerably.
Just reviewing Planet Labs archived images of Malan in recent months shows the aircraft configuration seen above to be very active at the base. This relatively large unmanned ‘fighter’, analogous to a manned light-to-medium weight fighter in size, is a tailless design that features a very similar planform as the J-XDS 6th generation manned fighter. It also appears similar in shape to another CCA-like aircraft that has been photographed flying.
One drone shown off during China’s big military parade looks very similar to it, in particular. But regardless, this general design appears to be a focus of testing at the base.
Chinese unmanned drone ‘fighter’ with similar planform seen during the 2025 military parade. (Chinese State Media)
Other mysterious aircraft have appeared at the installation as well, which is clearly set up specifically to run many programs within its high-security confines at any given time.
Beijing is actively pursuing a range of flying-wing drones of various sizes, including large HALE drones, designed to perform a diverse set of missions, including ISR and strike. For many years, TWZ has assessed that this was an area of the Chinese aviation industry most likely to see an explosion of investment. The WZ-X is still the largest Chinese design in terms of wingspan that we have seen in this category to date. The cranked-kite design is certainly the heaviest.
This new look at China’s two large flying wing combat drones comes as we got our first good look at America’s own RQ-180 HALE stealth drone, which has been flying for some time and is now being used operationally. It also comes as China is rushing ahead on all fronts with its next generation air combat ecosystem, and making impressively quick progress to show for its efforts. Still, a formidable looking aircraft doesn’t mean it can fight as impressively as part of a joint force as it looks, or survive against enemy air defenses. Regardless, China is clearly betting substantially on advanced and large unmanned flying wing designs.
Contact the author: ian.ellis-jones@teamrecurrent.io
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Sikorsky unveiled a new incarnation of its Armed Black Hawk helicopter at the Army Aviation Warfighting Summit in Nashville last week. TWZ’s Jamie Hunter spoke with Sikorsky’s Matt Isaacson about how this expands mission sets and provides greater flexibility for the Black Hawk, while minimizing the need for separate types with an air arm’s H-60/S-70 fleet.
Check out our full tour of the aircraft and its weapons:
The H-60 Black Hawk Gunship Evolves With New Wings And Weapons
