Right now, the biggest names in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) are together in one place: Indianapolis, Indiana, home of the Indiana Fever. It’s All-Star weekend, an annual event that sees the league’s stars from all 13 teams battle it out for a handful of trophies and awards associated with the skills contest, three-point contest, and, of course, All-Star Game (plus All-Star MVP!). The rosters were meticulously chosen based on a mixture of fan, coach, and media voting and drafted by the two players with the highest fan votes—Caitlin Clark from the Fever in first and Napheesa Collier from the Minnesota Lynx in second. On July 8, the team captains chose their desired starters and bench players, and now, they’ve made their way to the Hoosier state to see who played the role of WNBA general manager better.
Before all the action begins, we’re giving you the lay of the land—the perfect guide to navigating All-Star weekend, whether you’re a longtime fan and just want a quick review or brand-new to the game and need a full-blown explainer. We’ll touch on this year’s All-Star starters, the much-anticipated orange carpet, and the biggest storylines, from this weekend’s snubs to its rookie All-Stars, and reminisce about All-Star weekends from the W’s storied past. Everything you need to know is just a scroll away.
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First things first, let’s discuss this weekend’s schedule. There’s a lot going on, from off-schedule brand events to Fever Fest, a music festival put on by Pacers Sports & Entertainment and Hartbeat, Kevin Hart’s entertainment group. If you’re on the ground in Indianapolis, we highly recommend trying to go to as much as you can. Though, the actual on-court action is always priority number one, which means settling into your seat on Friday at 8 p.m. ET for the WNBA Starry 3-Point Contest and Kia WNBA Skills Challenge (both of which were won by Allisha Gray last year) and on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. ET for the AT&T WNBA All-Star Game.
Fever Fest will do a great job of filling in the gaps. It’s being held at Everwise Amphitheater on Saturday, starting with a performance by 803Fresh, who most recently performed at Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Afterward, the main show will kick off with comedy sets by Cedric the Entertainer, Leslie Jones, and Aida Rodriguez and musical performances by G-Eazy, Bia, and The Kid Laroi, the event’s headliner. Following the festival, ticketholders are invited to stay and watch the All-Star Game from the venue, starting at 8:30 p.m.
But that’s not all. Brands such as Coach, Nike, Kallmeyer, and Famous Footwear will also be putting on events, keeping All-Star attendees more than entertained during breaks from play. Plus, there’s the orange carpet, our personal favorite highlight of every All-Star weekend, which will take place on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. ET.
Click here for Fever Fest tickets.
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Long before anyone outside of the Fever organization landed in Indianapolis, the starters for this year’s All-Star Game were released. On June 29, the WNBA announced that Clark and Collier received the most fan votes and would therefore serve as the two All-Star team captains. A day later, the league shared the remaining eight starters, including forward Nneka Ogwumike of the Seattle Storm, forward Breanna Stewart from the New York Liberty, and center A’ja Wilson from the Las Vegas Aces. Rookie Paige Bueckers from the Dallas Wings, Gray from the Atlanta Dream, and Sabrina Ionescu from the Liberty join Clark in the guard position. Aliyah Boston from the Fever and Satou Sabally from the Phoenix Mercury round out the group, both from the frontcourt. (Ahead of the weekend, Sabally announced on Instagram Stories that she wouldn’t be competing due to an ankle injury.) The starters were determined by a combination of voting results, with fan votes accounting for 50% of the vote and current WNBA player and media votes each accounting for 25%.
On July 6, the reserves were announced, including guards such as the Dream’s Rhyne Howard (who was replaced following an injury in early July by Lynx guard and five-time WNBA All-Star Kayla McBride), the Fever’s Kelsey Mitchell, the Los Angeles Sparks’ Kelsey Plum, the Lynx’s Courtney Williams, the Storm’s Gabby Williams and Skylar Diggins, the Aces’ Jackie Young, and the Washington Mystics’ Sonia Citron. From the frontcourt, there’s the Mercury’s Alyssa Thomas, the Mystics’ Kiki Iriafen, the Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese, and the Golden State Valkyries’ Kayla Thornton. The reserves were selected by the league’s 13 head coaches, who voted for three guards, five frontcourt players, and four remaining players at either position without voting for any players on their own teams.
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Clark—who won her captain position for this year’s All-Star Game by earning the most fan votes with 1,293,526 (the most ever in the WNBA)—will celebrate her second All-Star appearance this weekend after being one of two rookies selected to compete in 2024’s All-Star Game in Phoenix. The 2024 Rookie of the Year hasn’t had the easiest start to the season, suffering multiple injuries, including one just days before the All-Star Game. Many had hoped that she’d be cleared to participate in both the game—which will take place on her home court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, just down the street from a massive Nike mural pasted on the side of the JW Marriott—and the three-point contest, but she announced via her team’s Instagram on Thursday that she’d be sitting out to rest her body. “I will still be at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for all the action, and I’m looking forward to helping Sandy coach our team to a win,” she stated in the post.
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Collier, too, sat out for a few games this season due to a back injury, but the short pause in play hasn’t stopped her from absolutely dominating in every possible way. The Minnesota Lynx forward, who hails from the women’s basketball university, UConn, is averaging 23.9 points, 7.7 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.7 steals as of July 8, and after hand-selecting her All-Star team, she’s leading her team to number one in the standings. Many in the WNBA world have already crowned her MVP, an award that would pale in comparison to the WNBA Championship title she so desires after last year’s loss to the Liberty in Game 5.
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Though her team hasn’t had the easiest start to the season, three-time MVP Wilson from the Aces is doing her thing, averaging 21.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.6 steals per game. She’s coming off a historic season in 2024, when she was unanimously voted MVP, and she just released her signature shoe with Nike, the A’One. Oh, and did we mention that the campaign video for the launch was directed by Malia Obama? Yeah, that Malia Obama. Casual. Wilson is one of the best players in the WNBA, and her performance in this weekend’s All-Star Game will showcase her talents in multiple ways.
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“What she does, day in and day out, is special,” said Diggins about her teammate Ogwumike, who will start in her 10th All-Star Game this weekend, in a press conference following the team’s game against the Liberty in June. “She’s a champion. She’s the most disrespected MVP in the history of our league, and every night, she’s breaking records.” Not even halfway through her 13th season in the WNBA, Ogwumike just passed Hall of Famer Sue Bird and Cappie Pondexter to move into seventh on the league’s all-time scoring list. Earlier in the season, she passed two-time MVP and three-time WNBA champion Candace Parker. Above her are legends of the game, such as Diana Taurasi, Tina Charles, Tamika Catchings, and Tina Thompson, and given how dominant she’s playing right now, Ogwumike will move up on the list in no time.
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Every year, to kick off the weekend’s festivities, the WNBA rolls out not a red but an orange carpet so that the All-Stars can flex their style before they flex their skills on the court. Everyone gets dressed up, some styling themselves and others leaning on their stylists to help them come up with a look deserving of the occasion. Our prediction? A few attendees, including Citron, Iriafen, and maybe even Bueckers, will be wearing Coach, the official handbag sponsor of the WNBA. The others, like Diggins, Plum, and Reese? We’ll have to wait and see, but we’re placing bets that Clark will wear Prada, a brand she told Who What Wear was her favorite in a press conference earlier this season.
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Going into WNBA All-Star weekend this season, there’s a lot of chatter going around the league. There are injuries that we hope will be healed by tip-off on Saturday and questions about how Collier’s larger frontcourt-heavy team will compete with Clark’s guard-focused lineup. Of course, like with any All-Star team in any sports league, there are also snubs. Anyone whose algorithm on X has adjusted to their interest in women’s basketball will tell you that narratives run wild in the W. Even in a slow week, people are talking about something, and with an event this big on the horizon, the chatter is nonstop. Keep scrolling to read through a few of the biggest topics of discussion right now in the league, from Clark’s recent return from two injuries to the three rookies who received All-Star nods in 2025.
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On the evening of July 8, Collier and Clark went on live television to draft their teams (and coaches!) for the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game. Clark, who said on-air that she was picking her team based on vibes, went first. Not at all surprisingly, she chose her Fever teammate, center Boston. Collier followed it up by selecting her fellow former UConn Husky and the player she co-founded Unrivaled with, forward Stewart from the Liberty. The two then traded star players, with Clark selecting Ionescu, Wilson, and Sabally and Collier picking Gray, Ogwumike, and Bueckers, another former (“baby”) Husky. Just like that, the starters were set.
The duo then went to the list of reserve players, selected by WNBA coaches. Collier started this round by selecting her Lynx teammate Courtney Williams and following her up with Diggins, Reese, Thomas, Plum, and Howard (now McBride). Clark, too, picked her Fever teammate, Mitchell, first before picking Gabby Williams, Citron, Iriafen, Thornton, and Young. One team has size in the frontcourt, and the other has guards ready to shoot threes until the final buzzer sounds in Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
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Though there are a total of three 2025 rookie All-Stars, only one was named a starter, and that’s Bueckers. The 23-year-old guard from Hopkins, Minnesota, took home the 2025 NCAA Championship trophy just a few days before being selected first in the 2025 WNBA Draft. She received the second-most votes by fans among guards, coming only second to Clark, and the media and players ranked her fifth and fourth, respectively. Her weighted score of 3.25 put her in the top overall guard position over Clark, Ionescu, and Gray, the other three starting players in her position. She’ll start on Team Collier alongside the team captain as well as Ogwumike, Stewart, and Gray.
The other two rookies who made the All-Star team, Citron and Iriafen from the Mystics, are on the reserve list, meaning that they’ll come off the bench during the game. Both were drafted by Clark. In other words, it’ll be rookies versus rookies on All-Star Game day.
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Given how competitive the league is as well as its expansion, there will always be a couple of “snubs” when it comes to the All-Star Game. So many players are great, but there are limited roster spots, making it difficult to give everyone the flowers they deserve at this annual event. Some, like Brittney Sykes, Natasha Cloud, Jonquel Jones, Alanna Smith, and Brionna Jones, have been called out by various outlets, and many believe that their play this season should have earned them tickets to Indianapolis.
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The first WNBA All-Star Game took place in 1999 in New York City when the East took on the West in Madison Square Garden, understandably hyped up after listening to Whitney Houston start things off with the national anthem. That first year, Lisa Leslie took home her first of three All-Star MVP trophies after she helped the West take home a W, 79 to 61. It’s taken place almost every year since, but 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 were all skipped due to either the Olympics or the COVID pandemic. And then there were those rogue exhibition games in 2004 and 2010—The Game at Radio City and Stars at the Sun, respectively, which saw Team USA take on a team of All-Stars in a nonstandard format. Last year proved to be a highlight for the history books, with Arike Ogunbowale going from scoring zero points in the first half of the game for the All-Star team (opposite Team USA ahead of their trip to Paris) to registering 34 points, winning MVP by a landslide. Records were broken by both rookies, Clark and Reese, and Gray beat her competition in both the Skills Competition and the Starry 3-Point Contest, a feat that had never been accomplished before.
For more about All-Star games through history, keep reading.
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It’s hard to top the first-ever special guest at a WNBA All-Star Game, Houston, who performed the national anthem at the inaugural matchup back in 1999 at Madison Square Garden. Kristin Chenoweth, the original Glinda the Good (not to be confused with the current owner of said name, Ariana Grande), sang the anthem in 2019, and Teyana Taylor arrived later in the game to perform during halftime. In 2023, we saw Kehlani perform at halftime, and last year, during the All-Star weekend in Phoenix, Pitbull performed, as did current NCAA women’s basketball player/recording artist Flau’jae Johnson. Outside of performances, the 2024 All-Star Game saw appearances by women’s basketball superfan Jason Sudeikis, Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, and Aubrey Plaza, who actually tore her ACL playing a game of pickup basketball during the eventful weekend last summer. This year is expected to have just as many, if not more, special guests. Taylor Swift, perhaps? She and Clark are friends, after all.
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The WNBA doesn’t have a dunk contest like the NBA, but that in no way means that dunks don’t happen in the W. (According to Bet MGM, there have been 38 total dunks in the WNBA.) They definitely happen in the WNBA All-Star Game, where showing out for the fans is kind of the entire point. Leslie from the Los Angeles Sparks recorded the first dunk in WNBA history back in 2002. “In the moment, our team was losing, and I wasn’t happy,” she told Bleacher Report in 2021. “We picked up our defense, and my teammate stole me the ball, and I was heading down the court and just dunked it in first out of anger that we were down. Then, once the crowd reacted, I realized what I had done.” In 2005, she became the first WNBA player to dunk in an All-Star Game, which was held at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut.
Brittney Griner, the 6’9” center who started in the league in 2013, has recorded 27 of those 38 dunks, including two (!) in her WNBA debut and seven in All-Star Games. Sylvia Fowles, who retired in 2022, was also an All-Star dunker, even performing a breakaway dunk in her final All-Star Game in 2022 in Chicago. Another dunker, Parker, may not have dunked in a WNBA All-Star Game, but she did win a slam-dunk contest at the McDonald’s All-American Game in 2004.
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There have been a few different team formats in WNBA All-Star Game history and plenty of particularly strong player combinations. This year, the two teams were chosen by two captains, Clark and Collier, who got their roles by earning the most All-Star fan votes. Previously, we’ve seen teams separated by conference, and most recently, given that 2024 was an Olympics year, the teams were divided into Team USA players and All-Stars. The All-Stars beat the Olympic squad (who went on to beat France in the gold-medal game) 117 to 109. Other highlights? How about the time that Parker, in her All-Star debut, was awarded MVP after dropping 23 points back in 2013? Or what about the next year when the East’s Angel McCoughtry, Catchings, and Cappie Pondexter eked out a win over the West’s Maya Moore, Taurasi, and Parker in overtime, 125 to 124?
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Dawn Staley, the current coach of the dominant South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team and a Hall of Fame former player, won the first-ever three-point contest (formerly called the three-point shootout) in 2006, competing against the GOAT of the league, Taurasi, among others. Other winners include Becky Hammon, who now coaches for the 2022 and 2023 championship-winning Las Vegas Aces, and most famously, Ionescu, who absolutely dominated the 2023 contest, taking out DiJonai Carrington, Mitchell, Ogunbowale, Sami Whitcomb, and Jackie Young by a landslide, making 37 of the total 40 shots for a 92.5% three-point percentage. The player with the next closest record? Four-time three-point contest winner Allie Quigley from the Chicago Sky, whose highest percentage came in 2018 with 85.3%. Not bad at all.
