‘Queen returns’: Napheesa Collier will make her season debut at No. 1 for the Minnesota Lynx on Wednesday.
The rich keep getting richer — at least when it comes to Minnesota WNBA teams. Napheesa Collier is officially listed as “probable” for Wednesday’s game against the Seattle Storm, the team announced Tuesday. This highly anticipated season will officially be his first game of the 2026 season.
Collier suffered injuries to both ankles last season, one in the regular season and one in the playoff series against the Phoenix Mercury. He had both surgeries during the off-season so he hasn’t been on the court yet this season.
Collier was one of the MVP candidates last season while playing the best basketball of his career. In the 2025 season, he averaged a career-best 22.9 points per game while shooting 53.1% from the field and 40.3% from beyond the arc. He also averaged 7.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.5 blocks per game. These efforts earned her selection to the All-WNBA first team, as well as the All-Defense first team.
Although he joked last week about “fighting” doctors every day to get back on the court, Collier said he has learned to embrace the recovery process.
“I can only say a hug. First of all, I think everything happens for a reason,” he said on Saturday. “And no matter what, this is the ride of my life. I can’t control that I got hurt, but I can control my thinking now,” Collier said. “If I push my rehab and do everything I can to come back, if I’m a good team player, I support my team while I’m out, I make the most of it.
“Things will happen in life that you can’t control, but you can control how you react to things and how you think about them. So I’d say just change inward instead of outwardly in the things that happen.”
This is an interesting game for Collier to make his comeback as it will be the last one before the All-Star break from July 23-27. There’s also the fact that when the two teams met on Monday, the Lynx narrowly escaped with a 105-102 victory against a persistent Seattle lineup. Wednesday’s game is scheduled for 3 pm ET and will be available on WNBA League Pass.
How did the Lynx fare without Collier?
Amazingly. The Lynx topped the league with a 21-6 overall record even with Collier sitting out a single game. They will enter Wednesday’s game on a six-game winning streak.
A big part of this success was the addition of Olivia Miles, who is now on board the most impressive rookie of the 2026 class. Miles is averaging 19.6 points per game on 50.1% shooting, along with 4.8 rebounds, 6 assists and 1.3 steals per game. Coach Cheryl Reeve talked about how Miles finally gave the roster a real guard. The former TCU and Notre Dame star can certainly score, but his superior passing and playmaking skills should pair well with Collier’s skills.
Minnesota has won four WNBA championships, with the most recent occurring in 2017. Collier didn’t join the Lynx until 2019, so the Lynx are still looking for their first title in the Collier era. They came close in 2024 when they reached the finals, but fell short against the New York Liberty. Last season they entered the postseason as the No. 1 seed, but they made it to the semifinals against the Mercury. Collier was injured in the Lynx’s penalty shootout of the season after a clash with Alyssa Thomas of Mercury and was sidelined for a Game 4 decision and the rest of the season for Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 winter league that Collier co-founded with Breanna Stewart.
Collier — a former UConn star and 2019 Rookie of the Year — is still waiting for her first WNBA title, and ironically, it could come in a year where she’s recovering from a major injury. Earlier this month, the Lynx were one of the teams has been picked as the favorite to win the 2026 WNBA championship.
