LAS VEGAS — The timing and location of this year’s WNBA All-Star Game couldn’t be much better.
Over the past week in Las Vegas, 19-year-old French phenom Victor Wembanyama — the No. 1 pick of last month’s NBA draft — made his San Antonio Spurs debut during a summer league game in front of a sold-out crowd at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center, NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke openly about the city as a potential candidate for an expansion franchise, and the hometown Aces continued to roll through opponents to move to 19-2 as they seek a second straight WNBA title.
That’s a lot of professional basketball momentum ahead of Saturday night’s WNBA All-Star Game at Michelob Ultra Arena, where a sellout has already been declared.
Team Wilson is captained by Aces star and two-time league MVP A’ja Wilson, and she will be joined by three of her Las Vegas teammates when they take on Team Stewart, led by 2018 MVP Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty. For the second year in a row, Stewart and Wilson were named captains — granting them the opportunity to pick their teammates — as the top two recipients of fans’ votes.
The Atlanta Dream’s Rhyne Howard, a former Bradley Central High School standout from Cleveland, Tennessee, was a late addition this week as a replacement for injured Washington Mystics forward Elena Delle Donne. Howard, who was also an All-Star last year — when she was the WNBA’s No. 1 draft pick and rookie of the year — entered the break averaging 32.4 minutes, 18.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.5 steals, 1.2 assists and nearly half a block per game while helping the fifth-place Dream to an 11-8 start.