{"id":562983,"date":"2026-04-03T22:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/562983\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T22:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:55:08","slug":"aliyah-boston-urges-indiana-fever-to-protect-her-ahead-of-2026-wnba-expansion-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/562983\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliyah Boston Urges Indiana Fever to Protect Her Ahead of 2026 WNBA Expansion Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aliyah Boston<\/a> is set to begin her fourth WNBA<\/a> season with the Indiana Fever<\/a> in 2026, aiming for a return to the playoffs. The former South Carolina Gamecocks<\/a> forward has built a strong career with the Fever so far, earning three All-Star selections while averaging 14.5 points on 54.7% shooting, along with 8.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game over her first three seasons.<\/p>\n

Boston also participated in the second season of the 3-on-3 Unrivaled league during the WNBA offseason. However, in the regular-season finale, she suffered a right lower extremity injury, forcing her to miss the Unrivaled playoffs as well as Team USA\u2019s 5-0 run in the 2026 FIBA World Cup qualifying tournament. She is expected to be healthy for the start of the 2026 WNBA season.<\/p>\n

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\"Indiana<\/p>\n

Indiana Fever forward Aliyah Boston reacts after defeating the Atlanta DreamDale Zanine-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

(Dale Zanine-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

In 2025, the WNBA introduced its 13th team, as the Golden State Valkyries became the league\u2019s first expansion franchise since the Atlanta Dream in 2008. The 2026 season will bring two more teams, with the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire set to debut, increasing the league\u2019s total to 15 teams.<\/p>\n

And on Friday, the WNBA held its 2026 expansion draft, in which the Fire and Tempo selected players from the 13 existing teams. Each expansion team had the opportunity to make up to 12 selections (six per round over two rounds). Existing teams were allowed to protect up to five players and could lose a maximum of two players total (one per round).<\/p>\n

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Ahead of the WNBA expansion draft, Boston and former Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> star Candace Parker hosted an episode of their podcast, \u201cPost Moves with Candace Parker and Aliyah Boston.\u201d When asked whether she thought the Fever would protect her, Boston made a request to the team in hopes that they would.<\/p>\n

“Fingers crossed, fingers crossed they protect me,” Boston said.<\/p>\n

Boston and the Fever will open up the 2026 WNBA season on May 9, hosting Paige Bueckers<\/a> and the Dallas Wings.<\/p>\n

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Related: Angel Reese Is Trending After Chicago Sky\u2019s WNBA Draft Trade<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Apr 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the WNBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aliyah Boston is set to begin her fourth WNBA season with the Indiana Fever in 2026, aiming for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[177217,2648,5786,3444,3028,2834,4804,2839,2833,12077,1782,99,85228,434,51110],"class_list":{"0":"post-562983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-2026-wnba-season","9":"tag-aliyah-boston","10":"tag-atlanta","11":"tag-atlanta-dream","12":"tag-candace-parker","13":"tag-dallas-wings","14":"tag-golden-state-valkyries","15":"tag-indiana-fever","16":"tag-paige-bueckers","17":"tag-portland-fire","18":"tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-toronto-tempo","21":"tag-wnba","22":"tag-wnba-expansion-draft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562983","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=562983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}