{"id":821433,"date":"2026-07-23T19:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/821433\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T19:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:14:09","slug":"wnba-unveils-new-all-star-weekend-event-as-league-celebrates-30th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/821433\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA unveils new All-Star Weekend event as league celebrates 30th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Instead of the usual Skills Challenge, the 2026 WNBA All-Star weekend in Chicago will feature a &#8220;Shooting Stars&#8221; competition with four teams made up of three generations of women&#8217;s basketball. The event, set for Friday night at 8 p.m. ET, includes retired WNBA legends, current players and top high school players from Nike EYBL.<\/p>\n<p>Four legends will help the WNBA celebrate its 30th anniversary in the event: two-time MVP Elena Delle Donne (representing Washington), three-time MVP Lauren Jackson (representing Seattle), five-time WNBA champion <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/1104986\/rebekkah-brunson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rebekkah Brunson<\/a> (representing Minnesota) and three-time WNBA champion Deanna &#8220;Tweety&#8221; Nolan (representing both Dallas and Detroit since the original <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/DAL\/dallas-wings\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wings<\/a> franchise was the Detroit <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/TLS\/tulsa-shock\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shock<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The current WNBA players joining them are <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/WAS\/washington-mystics\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mystics<\/a> center <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/28850646\/shakira-austin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shakira Austin<\/a>, <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/SEA\/seattle-storm\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Storm<\/a> guard <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/29369564\/flaujae-johnson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Flau&#8217;jae Johnson<\/a>, <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/teams\/MIN\/minnesota-lynx\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lynx<\/a> guard <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/26677989\/courtney-williams\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Courtney Williams<\/a> and Wings forward Jessica Sheppard. The Nike EYBL participants have not been assigned a team yet, but they will be Jezelle &#8220;GG&#8221; Banks, Ryan Carter, Tatianna Griffin and Morghan Reckley.<\/p>\n<p>Last but not least, the honorary General Managers for the All-Star Game, Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon, will each serve as designated passers for two teams each. Here are the rosters so far:<\/p>\n<p>Minnesota<\/p>\n<p>Rebekkah Brunson<\/p>\n<p>Courtney Williams<\/p>\n<p>TBA<\/p>\n<p>Seattle<\/p>\n<p>Lauren Jackson<\/p>\n<p>Flau&#8217;jae Johnson<\/p>\n<p>TBA<\/p>\n<p>Washington<\/p>\n<p>Elena Delle Donne<\/p>\n<p>Shakira Austin<\/p>\n<p>TBA<\/p>\n<p>Dallas\/Detroit<\/p>\n<p>Deanna &#8220;Tweety&#8221; Nolan<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/26677842\/jessica-shepard\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jessica Shepard<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TBA<\/p>\n<p>This event will have two rounds in which teams have 70 seconds to score as many points as possible from seven shooting locations around the court, ranging from a layup to a long-range 3-pointer. The two teams with the highest score in the first round will move on to the championship round.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here are more details on the rules:<\/p>\n<p>Since the Shooting Stars competition is new to the WNBA, there is no exact wording in the Collective Bargaining Agreement on how the prize money will be distributed. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/wnba-union-increases-all-star-prize-money-to-170000-even-with-new-cba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Front Office Sports reports<\/a> that current players are expected to receive $7,500 for participating, and the winner will take home an additional $15,000, which is the same breakdown the CBA has for the Skills Challenge. The WNBA&#8217;s 3-point contest will also take place on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>While this is the inaugural year for the WNBA Shooting Stars competition, the <a href=\"https:\/\/cbssports.com\/nba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NBA<\/a> introduced it to All-Star weekend in 2004 and ran it annually until 2015. Those original teams included one current NBA player, one current WNBA player and one retired NBA legend representing a specific city. The power trio of Chris Bosh, Dominique Wilkins and <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/wnba\/players\/1104990\/swin-cash\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Swin Cash<\/a> won it three consecutive years from 2013-2015. After an 11-year absence, the league brought it back during the 2026 All-Star weekend in Los Angeles. This new version featured two current NBA players and one NBA legend on each roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Instead of the usual Skills Challenge, the 2026 WNBA All-Star weekend in Chicago will feature a &#8220;Shooting Stars&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,4645,3459,108955,35092,736,85234,1611,12197,82,246900,45204,737,630,4458,1872,25640,287568],"class_list":["post-821433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-courtney-williams","tag-dallas-wings","tag-flaujae-johnson","tag-jessica-shepard","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-rebekkah-brunson","tag-seattle-storm","tag-shakira-austin","tag-sports","tag-swin-cash","tag-tulsa-shock","tag-washington-mystics","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-all-star","tag-wnba-all-star-game","tag-wnba-news","tag-wnba-shooting-stars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821433","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=821433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}