The WNBA season gets underway on Friday. Which means that so, too, does Breanna Stewart’s quest to be the best women’s basketball player of all time.
Stewart’s recent success — she won Finals MVP as her Seattle Storm won the 2020 WNBA championship — obscures the fact that her career very nearly came to an end just two years ago.
Over at The Ringer, Mirin Fader describes the torn achilles that left Stewart wondering if she’d ever play basketball again. It’s a rare look at how devastating a career-threatening injury can be: not just physically, but emotionally. “I’m like, how am I supposed to go and try and win another WNBA title? Go and try and get buckets on people?” she told Fader.
Her road back, of course, culminated in that 2020 Finals MVP. But the journey there was harrowing. From not being able to bathe herself for three months to a breakdown during rehab, Fader chronicles the drive and the persistence that define Breanna Stewart. She also gives us a sense of the more mature, more well-rounded Stewart that came out the other side.
“Yeah, I’m a great basketball player and this and that and the other,” she told Fader. “But all of the things I’ve been through, people are going through. Realizing they can be OK from the trauma they’ve experienced—I want to make that the real message.”The WNBA season gets underway on Friday. Which means that so, too, does Breanna Stewart’s quest to be the best women’s basketball player of all time.
Stewart’s recent success — she won Finals MVP as her Seattle Storm won the 2020 WNBA championship — obscures the fact that her career very nearly came to an end just two years ago.
Over at The Ringer, Mirin Fader describes the torn achilles that left Stewart wondering if she’d ever play basketball again. It’s a rare look at how devastating a career-threatening injury can be: not just physically, but emotionally. “I’m like, how am I supposed to go and try and win another WNBA title? Go and try and get buckets on people?” she told Fader.
Her road back, of course, culminated in that 2020 Finals MVP. But the journey there was harrowing. From not being able to bathe herself for three months to a breakdown during rehab, Fader chronicles the drive and the persistence that define Breanna Stewart. She also gives us a sense of the more mature, more well-rounded Stewart that came out the other side.
“Yeah, I’m a great basketball player and this and that and the other,” she told Fader. “But all of the things I’ve been through, people are going through. Realizing they can be OK from the trauma they’ve experienced—I want to make that the real message.”
