Injuries have been the unfortunate story of this season. Six of the 10 players who made the All-WNBA Teams last season have missed 10 or more games this year, a huge number for a 44-game season. Those absences will undoubtedly affect the All-WNBA selections this season, and could play a role in regular season awards as well. But their effect will be entirely subjective.
For the past two seasons, the NBA has had a rule that players must appear in at least 65 of 82 games to be eligible for award selections. The WNBA has no such rule, but if they did, it could change a lot.
What would a games-played threshold look like for WNBA awards?
A WNBA threshold equivalent to the NBA's would work out to 35 games, meaning anyone who missed 10 or more games this season would be ineligible. That would knock out players like Caitlin Clark, Arike Ogunbowale and Kahleah Copper who would probably already miss out based on subjective criteria. But it would also definitively eliminate the following players, who are all right on the line.
Napheesa Collier: The MVP frontrunner for a good portion of the season, Collier would be ineligible with a games-played threshold. Collier has already missed 10 games, and even if she played in all three of the Lynx's final games would still have appeared in just 34 games this season. She's averaged 23.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.6 blocks per game. She's in the running for the scoring title and has been the best player on the best team in the league. But if this rule was in place, she'd be out, opening up the MVP and DPOY races and clearing a spot on the All-WNBA and All-Defense First Teams.
Breanna Stewart: She's made five-straight All-WNBA First Teams and finished in the top-three in MVP voting all five of those seasons. Her numbers are down a bit this year and even without the threshold, she probably wouldn't be in the mix this year since she's already missed 13 games. But this rule would have firmly knocked her out weeks ago.
Jonquel Jones: This is a similar case to Stewart, where the injuries have slowed her down enough during the regular season that she probably wouldn't be in the running anyway. But this is still one of the best two-way players in the league, averaging 14.4 points on a 62.4 true shooting percentage. And she'd be off the board.
Leïla Lacan: The first-round pick of the Sun from 2024 WNBA Draft has been overshadowed by the rest of this star-studded rookie class, but she's been very solid — averaging 10.2 points, 3.8 assists and 2.4 rebounds per game. She isn't a realistic Rookie of the Year candidate, but she has a good chance of making the All-Rookie Team. However, she's also missed 17 games and this threshold would firmly eliminate her and open a spot for someone like Saniya Rivers or Dominique Malonga.