The NBA and the NFL are in their offseason, so you have no excuse not to be focusing your attention on the WNBA right now.
Plus, WNBA All-Star Weekend tips off soon to show you what you’ve been missing.
The festivities begin Friday night in Indianapolis’ Gainbridge Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Fever and the captain of the Eastern Conference team, Caitlin Clark. Clark, however, has since been ruled out of all competition as she continues to recover from a nagging groin injury that also caused her to miss the Commissioner’s Cup. She has promised to be on the bench, participating as much as she can.
First up is the Kia WNBA Skills Challenge at 8 pm on ABC, which will have New York Liberty’s Natasha Cloud, Seattle Storm’s Skylar Diggins and Erica Wheeler, Atlanta Dream’s Alisha Gray, and Minnesota Lynx’s Courtney Williams battling it out against each other. There’s a target on Gray’s back since she won the competition last year.
Next is the WNBA STARRY® 3-Point Contest, which Clark was initially scheduled to be part of, but with her departure, the competition will be handled by Gray, Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu, Los Angeles Sparks’ Kelsey Plum, and Washington Mystics’ Sonia Citron. Gray also won the three-point contest last year, but she’ll be going up against Ionescu, who even participated in one with Steph Curry —and barely lost— in 2024.
Come Saturday, it’s time for the premiere event: the All-Star Game with GloRilla performing at the halftime show. With Clark serving as captain for the East, Napheesa Collier holds the title for the West.
The two had a draft and even a second round to fill spots with reserves, both largely staying loyal to their teammates.
Both rosters are listed below, and while Team Collier has size on their side, Team Clark has a wealth of shooters.
Like the NBA, the WNBA is spicing up the All-Star game a bit with four rule changes that include the shot clock being dropped from 24 to 20 seconds, live play substitutions, and they’ll keep the game fast paced because they’ll be no free throws, as the team will just be rewarded the maximum points had they made the shots.
However, the most exciting for fans is the four-point shot. Each team will have two four-foot circles on their end of the court behind the three-point line that, if made, are worth four points.