WNBA Tonight

July 24, 2026

WNBA All-Star Weekend: 3-Point Contest Tonight on ESPN, Bueckers vs Clark Saturday on ABC

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No regular-season games until next week, but the league takes over Chicago for its 30th-anniversary All-Star Weekend: the State Farm 3-Point Contest and the new Kia Shooting Stars event air tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN from Wintrust Arena, and the AT&T All-Star Game tips Saturday at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC from United Center, with Paige Bueckers captaining Team Coop against Caitlin Clark's Team Spoon. Angel Reese's knee leaves her Saturday availability uncertain, and Kahleah Copper has replaced the injured Kelsey Plum.

Tonight: The 3-Point Contest on ESPN, With a Guaranteed First-Time Champion

The State Farm WNBA 3-Point Contest airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT from Wintrust Arena in Chicago, home of the Sky, on ESPN (also Disney+ and the ESPN App). Six shooters compete across two timed rounds, with the top two scores advancing to a final (WNBA.com, July 22).

The field, with each player's season three-point percentage and volume (NBC Chicago, July 23):

The notable absences: Caitlin Clark is sitting out for the third straight year, and reigning two-time champion Sabrina Ionescu is also not participating, so the WNBA will crown a first-time 3-Point Contest champion (USA Today, July 23). The format gives each shooter one minute, five racks around the arc (four regular racks with four one-point balls and one two-point money ball, plus a fifth all-money-ball rack whose location the player chooses), and two "From the Logo" deep shots worth three points each (Sporting News, July 24).

Tonight: The Kia Shooting Stars, a New Event Replacing the Skills Challenge

The WNBA swapped out the Skills Challenge for a revamped Shooting Stars competition this year, borrowing a format the NBA ran from 2004 to 2015. Four teams pair a WNBA legend, a current WNBA player, and a Nike EYBL high school standout, what the league calls "three generations of women's basketball talent in one competition" (CBS Sports, July 23; ESPN, July 22).

The teams (WNBA.com, July 22; USA Today, July 22):

Each team is rounded out by a Nike EYBL high school player. The format is two 70-second rounds with seven shooting spots ranging from a layup to a deep three, and the two highest-scoring teams advance to a championship round. All-Star GMs Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon will serve as designated passers, each feeding two teams (WNBA.com, July 22). One footnote from the host city: no Chicago Sky players are participating in any All-Star Weekend event (theScore, July 24).

Saturday: The All-Star Game on ABC, Bueckers vs Clark as Captains

The 2026 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game tips Saturday at 8:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. PT from United Center in Chicago on ABC (also Disney+ and the ESPN App). Hall of Famers Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon served as honorary general managers and drafted the rosters on July 15, a callback to the league's 30th season: Cooper and Weatherspoon faced each other in three of the first four WNBA Finals, Cooper's Houston Comets against Weatherspoon's New York Liberty (Ballislife, July 15).

A coin flip assigned the top two fan vote-getters: Bueckers led all players with 1,045,051 votes and went to Team Coop, while Clark was second with 1,023,321 and went to Team Spoon. Becky Hammon of the Aces coaches Team Coop, and Cheryl Reeve of the Lynx coaches Team Spoon (WNBA.com, July 15; NBC Sports, July 23). The teams compete for Chicago youth sports organizations: Team Coop for Angels Athletics and Team Spoon for Girls in the Game, with $70,000 of a $100,000 pool going to the winner's charity (NBC Philadelphia, July 24).

Team Coop (coach Becky Hammon): Starters are Bueckers (Wings, 2nd All-Star), Breanna Stewart (Liberty, 8th), Kelsey Mitchell (Fever, 4th), Natasha Howard (Lynx, 3rd), and Gabby Williams (Valkyries, 2nd). Reserves are Angel Reese (Dream, 3rd), Marina Mabrey (Tempo, 1st), Dominique Malonga (Storm, 1st), Kahleah Copper (Mercury, 5th, injury replacement), Jackie Young (Aces, 5th), and Sonia Citron (Mystics, 2nd) (NBC Philadelphia, July 24).

Team Spoon (coach Cheryl Reeve): Starters are Clark (Fever, 3rd), A'ja Wilson (Aces, 8th), Olivia Miles (Lynx, 1st), Aliyah Boston (Fever, 4th), and Jessica Shepard (Wings, 1st). Reserves are Rhyne Howard (Dream, 4th), Allisha Gray (Dream, 4th), Jonquel Jones (Liberty, 6th), Courtney Williams (Lynx, 3rd), Kiki Iriafen (Mystics, 2nd), and Nneka Ogwumike (Sparks, 11th) (NBC Sports, July 23).

A few roster notes worth knowing before tipoff. Malonga, at 20 years old, is only the third player in WNBA history to make an All-Star team before her age-21 season, joining Lauren Jackson (2001) and Liz Cambage (2011) (WNBA Roundup, July 24). Miles, the Lynx rookie who dropped 32 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists in her final game before the break, is a first-time All-Star starter. The draft split several teammates: Clark and Boston (Fever) face Mitchell; Miles and Williams (Lynx) line up against Howard; Stewart and Jones (Liberty) are on opposite sides (CBS Sports, July 15).

Angel Reese's Knee: The Open Question for Saturday

Reese left the Dream's 93-91 win over the Sky on July 19 when her left knee buckled on a jump stop under the basket. She got up, then went down again, and the Dream ruled her out for the rest of the game. Coach Karl Smesko said she was in significant pain but wanted to keep playing (AP News, July 19).

No official diagnosis or medical update has surfaced in the five days since. The Dream do not play again until around July 29, so no injury report is coming to clarify her status. Reese remains on Team Coop's roster, no replacement has been named for her, and a July 22 report indicated she is expected in Chicago, where she played her first two WNBA seasons with the Sky (Sporting News, July 22). If she cannot play, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert will name a replacement, the same process that installed Copper for Plum (AP News via TSN, July 20). Her availability is the single unresolved question hanging over Saturday's game.

Kahleah Copper Replaces Kelsey Plum on Team Coop

The WNBA named Phoenix Mercury guard-forward Kahleah Copper an All-Star on July 22, replacing the injured Kelsey Plum on Team Coop. Plum has been out since June 22 with a lower left leg injury and said Thursday at All-Star Weekend that she expects to return to action next week, but she will not play Saturday (USA Today, July 23; Bleacher Report, July 24).

Copper was arguably the most glaring omission when reserves were announced. She ranks seventh in the league at 20.5 points per game despite missing the start of the season after knee surgery in May, and she dropped a career-high 41 against the Sparks on June 13. This is her fifth career All-Star selection (USA Today, July 23). Plum, a five-time All-Star and the 2022 All-Star Game MVP, was averaging 23.9 points and 6.4 assists in 12 games before the injury (Newsweek, July 23).

Tracking: What to Watch When the Season Resumes

The regular season picks back up the week of July 28 after the break (ESPN). A few storylines carry out of the break:

Collier is back. Napheesa Collier made her season debut Wednesday in Seattle, scoring 24 points in the Lynx's 86-76 win over the Storm. She missed all 27 games after offseason surgery on both ankles, and the Lynx went 22-6 without her, the best record in the league with a four-game cushion. The 2024 Defensive Player of the Year and two-time MVP runner-up is not an All-Star, she missed the voting window while injured, but how Cheryl Reeve integrates an MVP-caliber star into a team already on top is the defining second-half storyline. (Covered in last Tuesday's issue.)

Bueckers is healthy. After a scary collision with Nneka Ogwumike on July 19, Bueckers cleared concussion protocol, sat one game as a precaution, then returned Wednesday with 21 points and five assists in the Wings' 101-97 win at Portland. She arrived in Chicago Thursday for her second All-Star Weekend as a Team Coop captain (Dallas Hoops Journal, July 24).

The East race. The Fever (17-10) hold sole possession of first in the Eastern Conference, a half-game ahead of the idle Dream (16-10). Indiana closed the first half with a 123-88 rout of the Sun on Wednesday in which Clark scored 27.

That’s the reading for this issue.