Napheesa Collier has been out for the entirety of the 2026 season, carrying over an ankle injury from the 2025 WNBA Playoffs. After dual ankle surgeries, she’s nearing a return to the court in what has been a lengthy recovery.
Speaking this Saturday with the press, she opened up about her injury and gave some advice to other players going through a similar recovery injury to hers:
“I would say just embrace it, one I think everything happens for a reason and do whatever it is this is the journey of my life, so I can’t control that I was injured but I can control my mindset now, like if I’m crushing my rehab, I’m doing everything I can to get back, if I’m a good teammate, supporting my team while I’m out, making the most of it, because their are going to be things in life that happen that you can’t control but you can control you’re reaction to things, your outlook to it. So I’d say just shift inwards instead of outwards to things that happen,”
Napheesa Collier suffered two important injuries towards the end of the 2025 season, first a right ankle sprain on August 2 in a regular-season game against the Las Vegas Aces, which forced her to miss three games. Then, in Game 3 of the WNBA Semifinals against the Phoenix Mercury on September 27, she suffered an injury to her left ankle, which caused a Grade 2 tear of three ligaments.
When is Napheesa Collier expected to return to play with the Minnesota Lynx?
There isn’t a hard date set for Napheesa Collier’s return, and the Lynx are purposely leaving it up to everyone’s interpretation. It was expected that she could return to the courts in July, following her official return to practice on the first day of the month.
Over the last few weeks, the reports are that she has spent her time getting reconditioned to playing form. Analysts believe that Minnesota, with a comfortable 19-6 record and at the top of the league’s standings, is taking it easy with her return out of an abundance of caution.
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