{"id":382037,"date":"2026-01-01T18:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/382037\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T18:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T18:10:08","slug":"napheesa-collier-to-miss-unrivaled-season-because-of-ankle-surgeries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/382037\/","title":{"rendered":"Napheesa Collier to miss Unrivaled season because of ankle surgeries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier will have surgery on both ankles and is expected to be sidelined four to six months, including the upcoming Unrivaled season, the 3-on-3 women\u2019s basketball league announced Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Collier had been rehabbing ankle injuries suffered during the WNBA season but said last month that she was working back to full strength so she could be available for Unrivaled\u2019s second season, which begins Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year suffered a <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/collier-wnba-ankle-lynx-3767d2d3c1589de87079d91629391f29\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sprained right ankle<\/a> during an August game against the Las Vegas Aces and missed several weeks. She then <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/lynx-collier-injury-706b1a8309362992433870d1a1aa288a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hurt her left ankle in Game 3<\/a> of the WNBA semifinals against the Phoenix Mercury.<\/p>\n<p>Unrivaled, which Collier co-founded with fellow WNBA star Breanna Stewart, said a \u201cjoint team of medical staff\u201d determined that surgery on both ankles would be needed for Collier, named the 3-on-3 league\u2019s MVP last season.<\/p>\n<p>Temi F\u00e1gb\u00e9nl\u00e9 will take Collier\u2019s spot on the Lunar Owls for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP WNBA: <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier will have surgery on both ankles and is expected to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[20509,402,435,2822,2808,152186,6429,1077,6661,3250,99,5313,434,13017,13016],"class_list":["post-382037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-athlete-injuries","tag-basketball","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-mn-state-wire","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-sports","tag-surgery","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-basketball","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}