Liberty's Breanna Stewart, Team Collier Win WNBA All-Star Game
Breanna Stewart was the survivor of a seafoam civil war at the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game on Saturday night: the New York Liberty star was on the victorious Team Collier, which took down Team Clark by a 151-131 final at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The latter featured Stewart's metropolitan companions Sabrina Ionescu and head coach Sandy Brondello.
Stewart had eight points for a squad led by her fellow UConn alumna and business partner Napheesa Collier (Minnesota), who put forth an MVP effort with 36 points to break the single-showing record set by Arike Ogunbowale last year. Ionescu got most of her work done early, scoring eight of her dozen points through extra deep balls, as Saturday's exhibition afforded players to earn four-point tallies from the field.
Collier's group defeated one put together by local heroine Caitlin Clark (Indiana), who did not play due to a groin injury. The ailment failed to render Clark any less animated, as Brondello happily delegated a good bit of coaching duties to the face of the league.
While Clark's ailing entrants, who were also missing another starter in Satou Sabally (Phoenix), struggled to keep peace with Collier and Co., her plays did manage to share the love, as eight of her participants reached double-figures in scoring, paced by another familiar talent in Kelsey Mitchell (Indiana), who had 20 after a promotion into the starting five.
Team Clark endured further ailments as Sin City teammates and starters A'ja Wilson (Las Vegas) and Jackie Young (Las Vegas) were each limited by injuries. In their places, ex-New Yorker Kayla Thornton (Golden State) and Kiki Iriafen (Washington) took advantage of their first All-Star showings, as both put up double-doubles.
All that and more, however, was from enough to battle a relatively full-strength Team Collier, which set all kinds of records. Two bits of history were made on the same four-point shot from Collier: the fourth quarter tally not only moved Collier passed Ogunbowale but it came from the hands of Skylar Diggins (Seattle) for the latter's 12th assist of the night.
That set an All-Star Game record that Sue Bird once held and Diggins eventually became the first player to have a triple-double in the All-Star Game with 15 assists and 11 points and rebounds each.
For all the playful trash talk on the floor during the game, the players stood united before tip-off, wearing warm-up shirts bearing the slogan "Pay Us What You Owe Us" and the WNBA Players Association insignia. Players and league management met to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement in Indianapolis this week, the first major discussions of their kind since December.
With the All-Star Game in the books, the Liberty, ironically enough, open the second half of their first postseason championship defense against the Fever, hosting them at Barclays Center on Tuesday night (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Geoff Magliocchetti is a veteran sportswriter who contributes to a variety of sites on the "On SI" network. In addition to the Yankees/Mets, Geoff also covers the New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Giants and has previously written about the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Staten Island Yankees, and NASCAR.