3 Takeaways from the WNBA All-Star Game

Welcome back to The Female Playbook! In lieu of our weekly power rankings for this week, here is a recap of the WNBA All-Star Game with three main takeaways from the bustling, busy, and exciting weekend! 

1. Naphessa Collier will be our 2025 WNBA MVP

In Saturday’s All-Star Game, Minnesota Lynx guard Naphessa Collier scored 36 points, the most ever in an all-star game. As captain of Team Collier, Collier led her team to victory and selected a great core that helped contribute to their win over Team Clark. Collier was also extremely efficient in the game, converting 13 of her 16 shots. Throughout the season, Collier has consistently remained a front-runner for the 2025 WNBA MVP Award. After this standout performance to add to a list of other incredible performances throughout the season and an MPV award from the All-Star game, in my mind, there is no other player better than Collier and no doubt in my mind that she will win the 2025 WNBA MVP Award.

2. CBA Negotiations Remain at the Forefront

During warmups for Saturday’s All-Star game, WNBA players wore black shirts with white lettering saying, ‘Pay Us What You Owe Us.’ The players are currently in the midst of negotiating a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the WNBA after opting out of their last CBA in October. Through this new CBA agreement, salaries remain a problem at the forefront as players are negotiating for higher salaries through greater revenue sharing models that are more comparable to leagues like the NBA where players get 50 percent of the league’s revenue. Evidently, these negotiations remain at the forefront for the players as they continue to fight for higher salaries.

3. The WNBA Needs a Four-Point Line

This year, the WNBA introduced four-point circles for the All-Star game placed 28 feet from the basket. Team Collier was 12-28 on four point shots with Collier hitting four and Allisha Gray hitting three. Team Clark was 8-37 on four point shots. Many didn’t like the four-point shot for the WNBA All-Star game because players would often just be launching the ball from the four-point circle rather than taking layups or normal threes, which diluted the quality of the game. For instance, Clark had publicly said that for her team, the strategy was just taking a bunch of four-point shots. However, the reason this occurred was because the All-Star game is supposed to be fun for the players. In actual WNBA games, there is heavily more strategy and introducing a four-point line wouldn't result in players just launching four pointers – instead it would be a more selective sampling and add another exciting layer to the game especially for players like Clark who frequently take longer threes.

Image Credits for Cover/Featured Image: https://www.wnbaallstar2025.com/