Reigning WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne will be out indefinitely, as she is set to have surgery to repair a right thumb injury, the Chicago Sky announced. There’s a chance she won’t return for the rest of the season.
WNBA star Elena Delle Donne to undergo thumb surgery just before the playoffs
This is awful timing for the Chicago Sky.
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“It just got jammed up on a jump ball play,” Delle Donne told SB Nation with her thumb wrapped in ice and a towel draped over it in the locker room.
Delle Donne suffered the injury in the first quarter against the Washington Mystics on Wednesday. Without her, the Sky allowed the Mystics to set single-game franchise records in points and made three-pointers in a 118-81 blowout loss.
The WNBA Playoffs are just two weeks away, so Delle Donne doesn’t have much time to recover before her team is set to play at least one single-elimination postseason game. The Sky are currently involved in a three-way tie for the fourth-best record in the league, behind the Lynx, Sparks and Liberty. Under the league’s new playoff format, the Sky would face the seventh-place Seattle Storm in a single-elimination first-round matchup.
Since Delle Donne went down with her injury, the Sky are 1-2, with the lone win coming against the Connecticut Sun. She’s currently averaging 22.1 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.
