Minnesota Lynx head coach and president of basketball operations Cheryl Reeve did her best in Wednesday afternoon’s pregame to pump the brakes on the hype train surrounding Napheesa Collier’s 2026 WNBA season debut.
Meeting with the media in Seattle prior to Minnesota’s final game before the All-Star break, Reeve emphasized the need to “temper expectations.” While she didn’t commit to a minutes restriction of an exact number, she did say she’d be “mindful” of how long her star player was out there in her long-awaited return.
“This isn’t the end, but it’s a huge step to get her back on the court,” Reeve said. “So, we’re really, really excited for her. Expectations should be really tempered. … We are super women, but this is a process. This is … the next step in her process. We’re certainly going to be mindful that this is a really incredible step, but you know, we still have a couple of steps to go to where we get to seeing Phee as we know her.”
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Return of the King, King Theoden of Rohan led the Ride of the Rohirrim to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and declared, “Forth! And fear no darkness!” There were no such speeches prior to Wednesday’s ‘Return of the Queen,’ but there was a similar result. An epic performance punctuated with the thrill of victory.
Collier collected 24 points and 10 rebounds in an efficient 22 minutes of work, helping the Lynx to an 86-76 win against the Storm. The game marked Minnesota’s seventh consecutive win entering the all-star break, bringing the Lynx to a league-best record of 22-6.
“I was just so excited,” Collier said after the game. “I felt like a kid in a candy store to get on the court, to get with these guys, just a lot of excitement and just happy to be here.”
Collier got the start, but Reeve stuck to the plan for mindful minutes and gave her a quick sub after just a few minutes of knocking the rust off.
“I mean, I needed that first sub,” Collier said. “After that I felt like I got my feet under me a little bit. Obviously, it’s just like a year of pent-up excitement. I think there was a little bit of settling in, but my teammates always have my back. They were encouraging me through this entire process, today included, so I knew that they had me no matter what. So I was just happy to be out with them on the court again.”
Collier started 1-of-7 from the field, but after she got her feet under her and settled into the game, she converted on 8-of-13 and converted all four free-throw attempts.
“As long as I’ve been a Lynx, I’ve played with Phee,” Kayla McBride said after the game. “I’ve watched her grow. I’ve watched her become a mom. We’ve gone through so many things together as teammates, so it just makes me happy. Like I feel like I could take a deep breath the first day she was [back] in practice.
“Watching her do all the things behind the scenes that nobody sees, but we’re with her every single day, and this is somebody who I have been in the trenches with, so I’m just happy to see her out here doing her thing. … I’m just happy for my friend, my teammate, to just get out there doing the thing that she loves again at a high level.”
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Collier and the Lynx will have more to figure out as the curtain rises on the season’s second act coming out of All-Star weekend in Chicago. The cupboard of players Reeve has to work with was fuller on Wednesday than it’s been all season with 11 of the 12 players on the standard roster available.
“I’m going to stay in that same space that this is an evolution,” Reeve said following the game. “We’re not at the end of this. Like I said earlier, this was a big step getting her back on the court.
“Now it’s just continuing to build, her catching up conditioning-wise with the rest of the league because they’re all in mid-season form and she’s got to catch up. There will be ups and downs. There’s no doubt about it. I’m happy for her that she started with being darn impressive in her debut.”
Collier will look to ride this momentum further and get back to her pre-surgery level of play when she was a perennial MVP candidate. The level of success the Lynx have enjoyed in her absence should only make that easier for everyone. During her first postgame press conference of the 2026 season, Collier didn’t hesitate to give credit to the teammates who have kept Minnesota’s ship steered in the right direction for this long.
“I’ve just been so proud of them,” Collier said. “We have so many new people this year, and sometimes that can be tough. Of course there’s turnover from year to year, but we had two returners on court at the beginning of the year, so that’s not easy. The way that everyone has bought into what Minnesota is, the blood, sweat, and tears that it took to get here. The [work] behind the scenes every day building that chemistry, the buy-in, integrating all these new people, working with the best rookie [Olivia Miles] and arguably an MVP candidate right now.
“There’s just a lot that was going on this season. For us to be in the number one spot, I think time and time again it’s the old story, like Minnesota’s always counted out, but you can never count us out. It’s just been so fun to watch, and I’m so proud of this team.”
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