The Minnesota Lynx saw their postseason hopes come to an end in Sunday’s Game 4 loss to the Phoenix Mercury as Lynx star Napheesa Collier watched from the sidelines due to an ankle injury. And on Wednesday, news emerged on just how serious Collier’s ankle injury truly is.
Collier’s impact for the Lynx this season was significant, leading the team by averaging a career-high 22.9 points per game in 2025 to go along with 7.3 rebounds per game and 3.2 assists. Her absence was simply too much for Minnesota to overcome in the crucial Game 4 matchup with the Mercury, falling 86-81 despite a 31-point effort from Kayla McBride, the team’s second-leading scorer on the year.
On Wednesday, it was revealed by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne that Collier suffered a Grade 2 tear of three ligaments in her ankle and a muscle in her shin after colliding with Mercury star Alyssa Thomas in their Game 3 matchup last Friday.
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Collier, of course, has plenty of time to recover from this injury given the fact that the Lynx were eliminated from postseason contention on Sunday.
But the injury does loom larger for Collier’s involvement in the Unrivaled League, which she co-founded with New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart, and has played in each of the last two seasons for her Lunar Owls team. Unrivaled is set to return in January, meaning that her potential status of playing in the league may very well be in jeopardy.
Collier’s injury also goes hand in hand with her public statement against WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who she claimed does not properly value player safety in the WNBA.
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Now that the severity of Collier’s injury is known, there may very well be more and more WNBA players, and perhaps more important media members across all sports, that further chime in and take issue with Engelbert’s mismanagement of player safety.