All-Stars, No Rest: Injury Concerns Mount Amid WNBA’s Jam-Packed Schedule

The leagues biggest stars hit Indianapolis for the WNBA's 2025 All-Star weekend, but in a season plauged by injuries, the game schedules are raising concerns over player health and workload.

Jul 12, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Wilson basketball is seen before a WNBA game between the Chicago Sky and Minnesota Lynx at Wintrust Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

The 2025 WNBA All-Star Weekend is set to light up Indianapolis and fans from all over have poured in to see their dream pairings––who are often rivals––team up to hit the court for two days of festivities, headlined by the skills challenge on Friday and the star-studded game on Saturday.

The updated rosters for the 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Game 🌟

Watch Team Clark take on Team Collier on July 19 at 8:30pm/ET on ABC! pic.twitter.com/USD8wf9rSJ

— WNBA (@WNBA) July 17, 2025

But while it’s a major honor to be named an All-Star, it’s not exactly a break. Unlike their non-All-Star counterparts, who receive some much-needed time to rest, recover, and prepare for the second half of the season, the players participating are running through a packed schedule of practices, appearances, and the actual game while the rest of the league is on All-Star break.

This increased workload can leave players vulnerable in a season riddled with injuries. Currently midway through the season, The Next’s injury tracker has recorded over 141 injuries across the league, compared to the 203 recorded in the entire 2024 season and 175 total in 2023.

This year’s WNBA schedule expanded to 44 games—up from 40 in 2024—without extending the overall season length. But it’s the way those games are packed in that may be taking the bigger toll. As Mercury forward Satou Sabally put it bluntly, “We had nine games in 18 days. That’s not really responsible for a commissioner.”

Phoenix Mercury forward and WNBPA player representative Satou Sabally called out WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert for adding more games this season.

“We had nine games in 18 days. That’s not really responsible for a commissioner.”#WNBA pic.twitter.com/Ve7Azvl5h7

— Desert Wave Media (@DesertWaveCo) June 8, 2025

Dr. Laura Moore, a sports physician and orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery, explained how condensed schedules can be taxing on the athletes. “In order to…prevent injury, you need to make sure that you're maintaining all of the other muscles around your joints,” she said. “When you’re getting into these condensed schedules, when you're playing a lot of games in a week, you're not having time to rest, you're not having time to do the cross training or supportive training that you might normally do in between games.”  

Ironically, the players that generally get selected to the All-Star game are the ones who see the most playing time where rest would be most beneficial as Moore notes, “if you're nursing some little overuse [injury] somewhere, having even two days where you're not having to push yourself––in particular for these star players who are playing the majority of the game––like, that's a big win for them.”

Already, four named to the original All-Star roster have had to be replaced after sustaining injuries, including Sabally and team captain Caitlin Clark, who was recently sidelined after suffering her fourth injury of the season.

a message from Caitlin Clark ❤️ pic.twitter.com/zRGZEpqF5R

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) July 17, 2025

And in the second half of the season, the New York Liberty will begin a brutal stretch of 12 games in just 22 days. Factor in nine days of travel during that span, and that’s 21 of 22 days spoken for—leaving virtually no room for recovery, let alone the supportive strength and mobility training Moore stresses significantly assist injury prevention. Two of those Liberty players, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu, are also All-Stars—meaning they’ll be diving right in with no real downtime.

For players coming out of All-Star weekend, it will be crucial to take advantage of the downtime when they can.”It's gonna be some combination of rest, nutrition, modalities, and probably getting in the gym to work on kind of a supporting musculature in a controlled fashion,” Moore says.

As the WNBA continues to grow in visibility and popularity, the league will want to find a balance to protect the players driving that momentum––and creating room for recovery may be just as important as expanding the schedule.