At 13-3, the Minnesota Lynx entered Sunday’s home game against Washington with the best record in the WNBA.
The stellar start, including wins in 11 of their previous 12, has taken place with five-time all-star Napheesa Collier and Dorka Juhasz in street clothes.
How much longer will both be out?
“We are closer to the end of their recovery than the beginning,” coach Cheryl Reeve said before the game.
One of the WNBA’s top all-round players and an All-WNBA First Team honoree the past three season and All-Defensive First Team the past two, Collier has been out after having offseason surgery on both ankles, the later March 24 with an expected return to on-court activities being early June.
She signed to a one-year, $1.4 million supermax contract with the Lynx before the season.
Juhasz, who spent two seasons in Minnesota before taking 2025 off, has a sprained right mid-foot suffered during EuroLeague playoffs April 17.
“Theoretically, in the next couple of weeks, I feel like we should have a trainer coming to us, medical staff come to us, letting us know that we’ll see them in practice, that sort of thing. And how long from there it all depends on how the player responds to each of those things. You just can’t know those answers until you put them in it, but we are closer to them getting able to play in a 3-on-3, 4-on-4, 5-on-5 setting.”
Reeve said both have been working on conditioning, including pool training, weights and riding a bicycle, and have been doing on-court activity for a couple weeks. “That can mean anything from I can form-shoot only, I can push off this much or I’m now doing reactionary stuff or I am playing 2-on-2 or whatever it is.”