May 4, 2021
Rennia Davis injury throws wrench into Minnesota Lynx roster decisions
“We’re gonna be starting (the season) with a GM working harder than she wants to”, Reeve says of... herself
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Over the weekend, the Minnesota Lynx announced that Rennia Davis had sustained a stress fracture in her left foot. When pressed for details, Head Coach Cheryl Reeve told reporters, “That’s well out of my league, above my pay-grade, as they say.”
But Davis will be out indefinitely with no timetable for return. Reeve said they believe Davis suffered her injury at the end of her college career at Tennessee during the SEC Tournament and likely played through the injury in the NCAA Tournament.
“Maybe from her standpoint, she just thought there was some soreness,” Reeve said after Saturday’s scrimmage with the Atlanta Dream. “It wasn’t until she started exerting herself more fully in camp that she expressed the soreness was increasing. She only practiced three or four days, and I think it was the third day we did the (MRI) imaging.”
So what do to the Lynx as they work to finalize their roster?
“Unfortunately, that means that when you’re a team that has plans to only have 11 players, you now have 10 that are healthy until she can return,” Reeve told reporters after Saturday’s scrimmage with the Atlanta Dream, “It’s when you fall below 10 that you have an opportunity to add to your roster through hardships, but I’m not trying to get there from an injury standpoint.”
That would be the hardship exception, and the Lynx may get there due to absences — Napheesa Collier and Kayla McBride are poised to miss the beginning of the season due to their overseas commitments.
For a player on the cusp of making the roster, like Jessica Shepard, this might mean an opportunity for an extended tryout to play in real game minutes. It also opens up more playing time for Bridget Carleton, who had been working out at shooting guard as well.
And from a front office standpoint?
“We’re gonna be starting (the season) with a GM working harder than she wants to.” quipped Reeve, who is also the General Manager of the Lynx.
What Reeve does with the roster in the coming weeks is yet to be determined. But it’s certain that the team she’s starting the 2021 regular season with on May 14 won’t look like the one she’d envisioned on draft night back in April.
