No Napheesa Collier. No Jonquel Jones or Sabrina Ionescu. A’ja Wilson, Caitlin Clark, Alyssa Thomas and Kahleah Copper have all missed games. Courtney Vandersloot is out for the season.
The injuries are mounting across the WNBA, impacting the standings as well as teams’ season ceilings by the week. None were more impacted than the 2024 finalists, the Lynx and Liberty, who became runaway title contenders in the first month of the season.
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Are the Minnesota Lynx the frontrunners without Collier, their two-way do-it-all MVP leader? Collier exited Tuesday’s 76-62 win over the Aces with a back injury and missed the weekend victory over the Sparks that required a late offensive explosion from Kayla McBride. Collier, who has previously dealt with the same back issue, is questionable for Tuesday’s Mystics matchup. The Lynx won both games this season without her (and missed McBride for a chunk of time), taking the lead in the standings this week at 12-1.
Can the New York Liberty repeat when they’re missing nearly all of their starting rotation? To be blunt: no. The team reached consecutive Finals running on the double-double foundation of Jones. They won behind the improved mid-range game of Ionescu, a threat from 3 who could increasingly beat her defender to drain one before help came out, and the insertion of Leonie Fiebich, a two-way standout often guarding the best player. With varying players available and Fiebich at EuroBasket, they lost three of their last four games in an eight-day span.
The flip side is what’s happened in Phoenix, with Copper making her debut in a 76-70 win over the Aces on June 15. It was the first time the Mercury’s newly assembled big three, including Satou Sabally and Alyssa Thomas, took the court together. They’re 4-0 since, capped by a season-high 107-point offensive outing in a beatdown of the Sky over the weekend. How far can this group go with a healthy trio?
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There are variations of these questions asked up and down the league. There have been 105 individual injuries through Sunday’s games, marking one-quarter of the season, according to tracking by Lucas Seehafer of The Next. They tracked 203 injuries in 2024 and 175 in 2023.
They range from the top of the call sheet to the bottom of the bench. Four of the five players who finished tops on last year’s MVP ballot have missed games, a blow to a league leaning into marketing its star power. The only player yet to miss time is Breanna Stewart.
No one can control the presence of injuries. There are merely ways to attempt to limit the prevalence. Those are the issues at stake in the ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations, after the players opted out the day after the Liberty’s Game 5 Finals victory over the Lynx. The current CBA runs through the end of this season.
Players pushed for years to gain charter flights in part for their health and safety. It helps recovery to space out on the plane and arrive at the next destination the same night. The WNBA instituted a charter program last season and players want it codified in the new agreement.
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The schedule is also playing a heavy role. The league office, under rights granted to it in the current CBA, increased the regular season to 44 games this year — up from 40 in 2024 and 32 in 2021 — while the length of the season calendar remained about the same. (The 2021 and 2024 seasons took a month-long break for the Olympics, while the 2022 season ended early for the World Cup.)
Teams are playing games, on average, every 2.66 days. That’s not terrible, especially considering the NBA (with its own injury and season length dilemma) plays its 82 regular season games on average every 2.11 days.
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What many players are speaking out about is the stark variation of scheduling throughout the season. Average is but an idealized number. A team might play seven games in 12 days, then later on have a full week off between contests. Another team in those same spans might only play 4 in 12, without equivalent top talent in a row. The fatigue of elite basketball in a physical league lends itself to an increased chance of injuries.
In the end, everyone loses when injuries become the talking point — the players, the fans, the teams and the league itself. It’s a matter of how many losses will stack up while the stars are forcibly dimmed.
Yahoo Sports performer of the week: Nneka Ogwumike, Storm
Ogwumike averaged a league-best 25.7 points per game last week, leading the Storm to a 3-0 showing with wins over Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York. Only two of her 77 total points were from the free throw line. She added eight rebounds, 2.3 assists and two steals per game. Seattle needs that MVP level from Ogwumike to stay amongst the top tier.
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It’s her efficiency that stands out. Ogwumike went 71% from the field and 10-of-13 from the perimeter even while taking the second-most attempts of any player. Paige Bueckers went 23-of-51 (45.1%) and 2-of-13 from 3. Breanna Stewart was 25-of-49 and a notable 4-of-9 from 3-point range after struggling all season to hit from deep.
Game of the week
Indiana Fever at Dallas Wings, Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET on ION: The last time Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark met, Clark’s Hawkeyes advanced to the 2024 national championship. It’s the first of what portends to be many WNBA clashes of the “generational” point guards who played each other only twice in college.
Yahoo Sports power rankings
1. Minnesota Lynx (12-1)
2. Phoenix Mercury (11-4)
3. Atlanta Dream ( 10-4)
4. New York Liberty (10-3)
5. Seattle Storm (9-5)
6. Golden State Valkyries (7-6)
7. Las Vegas Aces (6-7)
8. Indiana Fever (6-7)
9. Washington Mystics (6-8)
10. Dallas Wings (3-12)
11. Los Angeles Sparks (4-10)
12. Chicago Sky (3-10)
13. Connecticut Sun (2-12)