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Michael VoepelJul 16, 2025, 10:51 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Michael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball and other college sports. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.<\/p>\n Phoenix Mercury<\/a> forward Satou Sabally<\/a> will not play in Saturday’s WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis because of an ankle injury, she announced Wednesday on social media.<\/p>\n Sabally was selected as one of 10 All-Star starters in voting by fans, players and media. She was then picked by captain Caitlin Clark<\/a> of the Indiana Fever<\/a> for her team.<\/p>\n Sabally, who is averaging a career-high 19.1 points, has not played since the Mercury’s July 3 loss at Dallas.<\/p>\n “Over the past two weeks, I’ve been working around the clock to rehab my body from injury with two goals in mind: to return to the court with my Mercury sisters as soon as possible, and to be able to participate as a starter in the All Star Game,” Sabally posted to her Instagram story.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n “Unfortunately, my body still needs more time to recover and I am unable to suit up and play in this weekend’s game. I’m disappointed, naturally, but I want to ensure I’m doing everything I can to be healthy after the break and give … my organization and the X-Factor everything I can as we compete to accomplish our team goals.”<\/p>\n “X-Factor” is the nickname for the Mercury fan base, which has embraced Sabally in her first season in Phoenix. She played her first five seasons with the Wings<\/a>, who drafted her No. 2 in 2020, then came to Phoenix this year in a multiteam trade.<\/p>\n Sabally noted she would still be going to Indianapolis for players’ union discussion on the collective bargaining agreement<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sabally’s replacement will be picked by WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert. She already selected one replacement player Tuesday: Minnesota Lynx<\/a> guard Kayla McBride<\/a> to fill the spot<\/a> of injured Atlanta Dream<\/a> guard Rhyne Howard<\/a> (knee).<\/p>\n Team Clark will face Team Napheesa Collier<\/a> in Saturday’s game (ABC, 8:30 p.m. ET). Clark, who sat out Wednesday’s loss by Indiana at New York<\/a> after sustaining a groin injury in Tuesday’s win against Connecticut<\/a>, is day-to-day<\/a>, so her status for the All-Star Game is also uncertain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael VoepelJul 16, 2025, 10:51 PM ET CloseMichael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-1887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}