March 4, 2025
Unrivaled, Up Next: Could injuries affect the WNBA season?
What do these injuries mean for the fast-approaching WNBA season?
As the inaugural season of Unrivaled surges toward the playoffs, the injury factor has continued to impact teams. While this has opened up spots for relief players to join the league, it has also led to questions about what’s to come in the WNBA season.
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There have also been a lot of changes to these Unrivaled rosters, with players in and out of lineups and relief players switching teams to accommodate needs. With only six (ish) players per team, changes to a roster hold a lot more impact than on a WNBA roster of 11 or 12 players.
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Sabrina Ionescu‘s Unrivaled season is over
Sabrina Ionescu was a late addition to the Unrivaled league. Due to that, she accepted with the league knowing she had pre-scheduled obligations already booked. She missed a weekend earlier in the season when she had to go to Paris with Nike as one of their brand ambassadors. Then, All-Star Weekend happened to be on Unrivaled’s mid-season break, so she did not miss any time traveling for that.
Now, Phantom BC and the league announced this weekend that Ionescu’s season is over — she will be heading on Nike’s Asia tour for the next bit before returning to New York to prepare for the WNBA season. While Ionescu missed a bit of time and ultimately left Unrivaled early, it was definitely still beneficial for her to be there.
Ionescu has never been one to play overseas in the WNBA offseason, instead opting to train herself. That means she had to find her own training staff and ultimately find people to play scrimmage games with. Unrivaled gave her the chance to do that same work, but get to play in games with her actual WNBA teammates and competitors, while also getting the benefits of Unrivaled’s training facilities.
When asked about her experience at Unrivaled, Ionescu said that “I wasn’t sure what to expect coming in, and to be able to see personally in real time, the growth that I’ve wanted to see in parts of my game that I kind of was determined to work on is really exciting, because you’re able to see it in real time.”
She also saw the benefits of being in Miami.
“Normally, I’m in my offseason, trying to find people to play with, and now here we have this Unrivaled season where you’re playing against the top players in your league, and you’re able to get kind of that competition that you need to see if it’s translating,” she said.
“It’s been really exciting to be able to kind of be able to work with the best on the things that I’ve wanted to be a part of my game, and then go out and compete and have fun while doing it. So I’m super excited to see how that continues to translate and helps grow my game.”
Ultimately, Unrivaled is a development league. Sure, it also needs to be appealing from a fan perspective to be able to draw in viewership and revenue — but its intended purpose was for development. So while it may be a little disappointing for a fan to not see Ionescu play the whole season, it’s actually beneficial in the long run, as it could advance her game come the WNBA season.
Injuries piling up as WNBA season approaches
By far the most injured team in Unrivaled this season has been Laces BC. Jackie Young has not played very much due to an injury, Alyssa Thomas was injured very early on in the season and has been in and out of the lineup. Kate Martin suffered an injury as well, so she has not played very much either. Even when Laces brought Betnijah Laney-Hamilton on as a relief player, she soon suffered a season-ending injury.
On other clubs, Marina Mabrey missed the first half of the season with a calf injury she sustained in training camp, Jewell Loyd has been managing an injury, to name a few.
Over the weekend, Thomas played just her second game back after injury and also was on a minutes restriction. Her Laces ended up losing in a one-point game to Vinyl, but Thomas said after the game “I feel good. I mean, I think we’re all trying to figure this out with a minutes restriction. So it’s the first time we’ve all played together in a month. So a lot of moving pieces. But, I mean, it felt good.”
After a hot start to the season, Laces were slowed down by these injuries, but could still make the Unrivaled playoffs. Head coach Andrew Wade was confident Friday in his team’s chances, stating, “We’ve got so much confidence in the locker room. We’re still in a good spot to clinch. It’s tough, obviously, with a lot of moving pieces, but it’s a testament to to the players have been working their ass off the last month to get healthy. So, yeah, we feel good.”
While that’s just a normal aspect of sports, it also leads to the question of these players’ availabilities for the WNBA season. It’s already March, and the WNBA Draft is on Monday April 14, with training camp starting on April 27. Unrivaled players will have over a month in between to rest and rehab before they need to ramp up for training camp, but if some of these injuries are longer term, it may mean they could miss WNBA games.
One thing Unrivaled has been transparent about is the communication between players, coaches and teams with their WNBA teams and staff. When Ionescu and Laney-Hamilton were both out for different reasons, the New York Liberty even released their own statement about their player.
@madkenney
“The NY Liberty are in communication with Unrivaled, Betnijah, and her team. We are gathering information and determining best next steps with our medical staff. Further updates will be provided when available.”
Of course, injuries can happen anywhere. If Unrivaled was not happening, most of these players would be playing overseas, or at Athletes Unlimited. If they weren’t doing that, they would still be playing in runs and training. Every one of these activities carries injury risk.
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