Olivia Miles just passed two Hall-of-Fame-track players in the same game she got hurt for the second time in five weeks, and somehow the record is the only part of that sentence anyone wants to talk about.
Miles passed A’ja Wilson and Paige Bueckers for third in WNBA rookie scoring history during the Lynx’s win over the Golden State Valkyries, and she did it while playing about as well as a rookie possibly can: 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting, 3-of-5 from deep, five rebounds, seven assists, two steals and two blocks in 30 minutes, all before she left the floor for good. Here’s the step-back three that got the record chase started:
https://twitter.com/WNBA/status/2090273735999627570
Midway through the fourth quarter, not too long after that shot, she stepped on Napheesa Collier’s foot while helping on a drive by Golden State’s Veronica Burton, and her left ankle folded under her.
She lay on the floor for a beat. Then she limped to the bench, and just like that, the Lynx had their second Olivia Miles ankle injury in five weeks.
Minnesota won anyway, 77-66, to move to 30-7 on the season. They’re 9-0 against Golden State dating back to last year, they’ve already clinched a playoff spot, and they haven’t dropped back-to-back games in weeks. Napheesa Collier’s own comeback already proved this roster can absorb a scary injury and keep winning, which is probably part of why nobody in the building sounded panicked about Miles. An Olivia Miles ankle injury on a team that’s 30-7 just doesn’t generate the same urgency it would on a squad fighting for its playoff life.
Same ankle, second scare in five weeks.
She rolled the same left ankle on July 15th against the Sparks, needed two trainers to help her off the floor, and came back four days later like nothing happened. Now it’s happened again, and Minnesota’s actual Olivia Miles injury update amounts to Cheryl Reeve saying “Obviously we are hoping she’s OK,” and, when asked how bad it looked, “I don’t have any idea.” That’s not stonewalling, that’s just what a coach says ninety seconds after a win with no MRI results yet.
A noncommittal answer in the immediate afterglow of a blowout isn’t proof of anything on its own, coaches hedge on injuries as a matter of routine long before anyone actually knows what’s wrong. But Kelsey Plum’s ankle injury derailed her own MVP-caliber year, and that didn’t announce itself as a crisis either, it just kept happening until it was one. Miles already beat both of their rookie paces to a different milestone earlier this season, so she clearly knows how to keep making history on a bad ankle. The question nobody in Minnesota wants to answer yet is how many more times she can afford to.
