PHOENIX – With the 2024 WNBA All-Star Sport set to tip off tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET from Footprint Middle, the Indiana Fever trio of Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell will symbolize Workforce WNBA in a matchup in opposition to the USA Basketball Ladies’s Nationwide Workforce.
Saturday’s contest shall be Clark’s WNBA All-Star Sport debut, whereas Mitchell and Boston had been named to their first All-Star rosters final yr, although the 2 competed on opposing groups. In 2023, Mitchell was a reserve on Workforce Stewart and Boston was a starter on Workforce Wilson. Boston ended up scoring the primary factors of the night time in final yr’s contest and completed with a team-high 11 rebounds and 6 factors, whereas Mitchell tallied two factors in her groups’ 143-127 win.
For Clark, collaborating within the WNBA All-Star recreation subsequent to Boston and Mitchell, whereas striving to develop the attain of Indiana ladies’s basketball, brings a component of objective past the competitors itself.
“I really feel very lucky and really fortunate to have the ability to share this expertise with them,” Clark mentioned. “It’s actually cool for our franchise and it’s one thing that’s actually arduous to perform. I feel it exhibits the place we’re going and what we’re able to, however attending to share with them too it’s a reminiscence you’re going to share collectively perpetually.”
5 explanation why Caitlin Clark is an All-Star:
1.Turned the primary rookie in WNBA historical past and first participant in franchise historical past to report a triple-double.
2.Leads all WNBA gamers in assists with a median of 8.2 assists per recreation.
3.Turned the quickest rookie in WNBA historical past to report at the least 400 factors and 200 assists in simply 26 video games.
4.Recorded five-consecutive double-doubles in factors and assists all through June and July, marking the longest streak of its type by a rookie in league historical past.
5.Broke the WNBA single-game assists report as she dished out 19 assists on July 17.
This level within the season signifies the midway mark of Boston’s sophomore season with Indiana. After being the 2023 WNBA No. 1 draft decide by Indiana, this years’ quite a few nationwide broadcasts and record-setting crowds, Boston senses the notable variations between her first and second years within the league with this Fever squad.
“You see the vitality, you see the eyes, you see all the pieces that’s ladies’s basketball and that’s ladies’s sports activities, and that’s actually thrilling,” Boston mentioned. “For us, it’s simply being in that second, understanding the place we’re at, understanding the eyes which are on us, understanding that we are available each single day and we work arduous and provides it our all as a result of we love the sport and it’ll love you again.”
5 explanation why Aliyah Boston is an All-Star:
1.Named WNBA Japanese Convention Participant of the Week on June 18 for the second time in her profession.
2.Fourth within the WNBA in discipline objective taking pictures share at 53.2 p.c.
3.Sixth within the WNBA in blocks per recreation at 1.5 blocks per contest.
4.Eighth within the WNBA in rebounds per recreation at 8.7 rebounds per recreation.
5.Moved right into a tie for fourth in franchise historical past with Erlana Larkins for profession double-doubles with 20.
This yr, Workforce WNBA shall be coached by former Olympian, three-time Naismith Participant of the 12 months recipient and girls’s basketball legend, Cheryl Miller. Miller performed school basketball on the College of Southern California the place she led the Trojans to back-to-back nationwide championships. Miller was additionally the primary head coach of Phoenix Mercury in 1997.
Saturday holds further significance for Mitchell, who views the All-Star recreation as a singular alternative to glean knowledge from one of many trailblazers in ladies’s basketball, significantly alongside her Fever teammates.
“Cheryl Miller advised us that she needed to win, and he or she made it clear and requested us, ‘How do you all need to do that?” Mitchell mentioned yesterday. “I feel we develop to understand it, as a result of on the finish of the day, we’re rivals. What she’s completed for us, and paved the way in which for us to be right here, we’re eternally grateful for her. I feel that we solely can do proper by her by competing as finest as we will tomorrow.”
5 explanation why Kelsey Mitchell is an All-Star:
1.Second on the staff in scoring and 14th within the WNBA averaging 16.9 factors per recreation.
2.Turned the nineteenth participant in WNBA historical past to succeed in 500 made 3-point discipline objectives.
3.Cracked the highest 60 all-time in factors scored in a WNBA profession with 3,596 coming into the second half of the season.
4.Second all-time main scorer in franchise historical past.
5.Has scored in double figures in Indiana’s final 23 of 26 video games performed.
Mitchell, Boston and Clark be part of 12 different Fever gamers who’ve been named to an All-Star roster. Under, discover the complete listing of franchise All-Stars:
Fever All-Stars:
Aliyah Boston: 2023*, 2024
Tamika Catchings: 2002*, 2003*, 2005*, 2006*, 2007*, 2009*, 2011*, 2013*, 2014*, 2015*
Caitlin Clark: 2024
Marissa Coleman: 2015
Anna DeForge: 2007*
Katie Douglas: 2009*, 2011*
Candice Dupree: 2017, 2019
Briann January: 2014
Kelsey Mitchell: 2023, 2024
Tammy Sutton-Brown: 2007
Erica Wheeler: 2019^
Tamika Whitmore: 2006
Natalie Williams: 2003
Rita Williams: 2001
Shavonte Zellous: 2013
*: Starter, ^: All-Star Sport MVP