Napheesa Collier had ankle surgery on March 24. Brionna Jones had knee surgery this month. Ezi Magbegor broke her foot in FIBA qualifiers two weeks ago.
That is the second-best player in the league, the best defensive center in the East, and Seattle's franchise cornerstone. All hurt. All before the season starts.
The WNBA office has not said a word about it.
This is the part where someone in marketing is supposed to remind me that injuries happen, that this is a contact sport, that nobody could have planned for this. Save it. The injuries are not the story. The schedule is the story.
The 2026 season is the longest in WNBA history. Forty-four games. Fifteen teams. Two expansion franchises. A new $7 million cap. Three new TV partners. The league sold the season as a celebration. Then they put the celebration on a calendar that gives players almost no rest between games.
Magbegor played in the FIBA qualifiers because the WNBA schedule does not stop for international competition. Collier's ankle is the cumulative damage of a player who has not had a full offseason in three years. Brionna Jones has played 159 games since the 2023 season. The math on her knees was always going to break.
Cathy Engelbert went on television last week to talk about expansion. She talked about Toronto and Portland. She talked about Houston and the Comets coming back. She did not talk about how the league is asking its players to play more games in less time with shorter recovery windows than any season in WNBA history. She did not because nobody asked her.
Here is what I want someone to ask her. If three top-15 players are hurt before the season starts, what are the projections for July? August? September? The data on cumulative injuries in basketball is clear. Players who start a season already managing injuries are 60 percent more likely to suffer a second injury in the first month. The W just lost three franchise pieces, and the season has not started.
The TV partners do not care. ESPN bought the rights to a season with stars. The stars are who get the marquee Sunday afternoon game on ABC. The schedule was built to put Collier on national television in May, A'ja Wilson on national television in June, and Caitlin Clark on national television every week. Take Collier off the schedule for the first month and ESPN's May ratings drop. That is the conversation happening in offices nobody outside the league sees.
The players know. Nneka Ogwumike is the WNBPA president. She has been raising the workload issue for two years. The new CBA addressed compensation. It did not address the schedule. The 44-game season exists because the league wants more inventory and the players wanted more pay. Both sides got what they asked for. Neither side asked the trainers what was sustainable.
I want to be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying the WNBA should not expand. I am not saying the players should not be paid more. I am saying that you cannot add eight games to a season, send players to FIBA qualifiers in March, open camp on April 19, and start the regular season May 8 without somebody breaking. Three somebodies broke. There will be more.
Atlanta is going to start the season without Brionna Jones. The Dream are scheduled to play eleven games in the first 22 days of the season. They are going to ask Angel Reese to play 32 minutes a night against Stewart, against Wilson, against Boston. Reese had a great rookie year. She is also going to be asked to do too much because the alternative is throwing rookie Madina Okot into the fire.
Minnesota is going to ask Natasha Howard to start at the four. Howard is 34. She has played 312 WNBA games in her career. She just signed a one-year deal because that is all anyone offered her. Now she is being asked to absorb starter minutes for Napheesa Collier in May. There is a real chance Howard is the next name on the injury report.
Seattle is just going to lose. Twenty-five games. Ezi Magbegor will return in late June and the Storm will already be 6-19. There is no version of the first six weeks where Seattle competes without their best player.
The opening night broadcast on May 8 will not mention any of this. They will show Caitlin Clark in pregame. They will show A'ja Wilson holding the championship trophy from last September. They will show Marina Mabrey running out of the tunnel in Toronto. They will not show Napheesa Collier in a walking boot. They will not show the Atlanta press conference where Karl Smesko had to explain a frontcourt rotation that does not include Brionna Jones.
If the WNBA wants to be a major league, it needs to act like one. That means publishing injury reports the way the NBA does. That means addressing cumulative workload with the WNBPA before the next CBA. That means somebody in the league office acknowledging, on the record, that three top-15 players are hurt and the schedule did not flex an inch to account for it.
Until then, the season starts in eleven days. Three stars are hurt. The schedule does not care. Neither does anyone who is supposed to be watching out for the players.
[ End Report ]
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