WNBA Rivals Week is here, but all the ‘rivals’ are injured

Shocking news: the WNBA schedule is flawed.

We knew that. From the overlapping of important match-ups, trying to balance watching five games at once and not having a 2024 Finals rematch until the end of July, scheduling has been a mess this season. One thing the WNBA tried to implement this season was a “Rivals Week,” including key matchups between rival teams over the span of a week.

Well, that week is here… and it won’t be what the WNBA anticipated.

Maybe the biggest marquee matchup for Rivals Week is the Indiana Fever vs. Chicago Sky game as ongoing hype around Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese continues. That game is scheduled for Saturday and neither Clark nor Reese will be playing. Clark suffered her second groin strain of the 2025 season on July 15 and has been out ever since with no timeline to return to the court. The last update from the Fever was that she would be continuing her recovery and they’d let us know when there was an update.

Reese, on the other hand, has been out since shortly after the All-Star Game with a back strain. Sky head coach Tyler Marsh told the media this week that there is no timeline for Reese’s return. That leaves one of the biggest draws of Rivals Week without its two stars, and instead will just be a lopsided game between the playoff-bound Fever and the 2-8 in their last 10 games Chicago Sky.

The other big draw of Rivals Week was multiple games between the 2024 WNBA Finals teams, the Minnesota Lynx and New York Liberty. Most notably, their stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, who are former UConn teammates, business partners and lead their current teams. Well, I think you can guess who is guaranteed not to play in either of the two games between their teams in Rivals Week: both Collier and Stewart.

Stewart suffered a bone bruise in her leg last week and is out until at least the end of August. Collier turned her ankle in a game against the Las Vegas Aces last week and while the sprain does not seem to be too serious, she has been ruled out for at least two weeks. While the two teams as a whole will still deliver on thrilling games, missing your two biggest stars for a highlighted match-up like this is terrible luck.

It doesn’t help that it took so long to even get these games, either. With how much hype there was around the Finals in 2024, it would have made perfect sense to have Lynx vs. Liberty as an opening weekend special. Instead, they didn’t meet until July 31, when both teams had already suffered injuries and many players were held out of the game.

Then, the Lynx will play the Liberty three times in a row in August and while the Liberty have another opponent shoved into their schedule, they’ll see the Lynx in three of four games as well. It would have been nice to see these two teams battle it out at full strength back in May or early June.

Rivals Week wasn’t the biggest deal to begin with, as it almost contributed to negative conversations surrounding the WNBA’s players. There is a ton of negative discourse surrounding how these women express themselves on the court, and while it would be fun to promote healthy rivalries, it doesn’t seem like the WNBA’s discourse is there yet.

Still, they tried, and now with all these injuries, it’s going to be hard to promote Rivals Week as the big deal they made it out to be. Whether the fix is letting these big rivalries play out naturally, fixing whatever algorithm makes this wonky WNBA schedule, or giving the players more rest time to avoid injuries like these, something’s gotta give.