A Deeper Look At This Year’s First-Time WNBA All-Stars

Tamika Catchings will step into the record books this Saturday when she takes the floor for her tenth All-Star Game, the most of any WNBA player ever.
But hers is not the only familiar face the contest will feature. Each of the ten selected starters has played in an All-Star game; among them are former MVPs Tamika Catchings, Tina Charles, and Maya Moore, as well as current MVP frontrunner Elena Delle Donne. Even the list of reserves feature such players as Sue Bird and Cappie Pondexter, who have played in 16 All-Star Games between them.
The list of reserves, however, when you factor in selections and replacements, is comprised of 10 first-time All-Stars to the Eastern and Western Conference squads. Here’s a look at the newcomers who will compete in this Saturday’s showdown:
Eastern Conference
Connecticut Sun guard Alex Bentley may be new to the All-Star spotlight, but she will certainly be recognized by the fans in attendance on Saturday at Mohegan Sun Arena, where Connecticut plays its home games. After two seasons in which she exhibited modest growth—her scoring average jumped from 8.3 to 12.3 points per game between her freshman and sophomore campaigns—the former Penn State star has exploded onto the scene this year. Her 17.1 points per game scoring average is not only a career-high, but also the sixth-best mark in the league. That improvement helped allow the Sun to jump out to an early Easter Conference lead and has them hopeful they’ll be able to return to that success during the second half of the season.
If Bentley has established herself as a backcourt stud for the Sun this year, her teammate Kelsey Bone has matched that achievement in the team’s frontcourt. In her second year with Connecticut, Bone has climbed into a tie for ninth on the league’s scoring list, averaging 15.4 points per game. Bone not only scores, but scores efficiently, posting a 54.9 field goal percentage that is good for third-best in the league and best among this year’s all-stars. The third-year veteran out of Texas A&M also ranks among the top 15 players in the league in rebounding, pulling down 6.3 boards per game.
After seven years in the league, many players have already maximized their potential or are simply content with the skill sets they have already developed. Not Marissa Coleman. While the seventh-year guard-forward out of Maryland averaged a career-high 8.9 points per game last season, that number was largely in line with her career average of 6.8 points per game. This season, however, Coleman has made a leap to the next level, pouring in 12.6 points per game on a career-best .442 field goal percentage. Coleman, in her first appearance, will be the only Fever teammate of Catchings on the All-Star squad.
Although she has logged the fewest WNBA seasons of anybody on the All-Star roster, that lack of experience has not seemed to trouble second-year Mystics star Stefanie Dolson at all. Sporting her trademark purple hair, the center out of Connecticut has established herself as a force in the post, hammering in 12.6 points per game and grabbing 7.3 rebounds per game, ninth-best in the league. Like her teammate Emma Meesseman, Dolson shoots efficiently from the floor, notching a top five field goal percentage of .543. Her performance has helped propel the Mystics, who finished under .500 last season, to a record that is three games above .500 entering the All-Star break.
In combination with Dolson, Meesseman comprises a part of a towering tandem that has formed in the Mystics frontcourt this year. In her third season, the Belgian center is among the top 20 scorers in the league (13.0 ppg), the top 15 rebounders (6.9 rpg), and the top five most efficient scorers (.545 from the field). She also blocks a ferocious 1.6 shots per game, fifth-best in the WNBA. Meesseman’s accomplishments become even more impressive in light of the challenges she has faced: she possesses only about 50 percent of her hearing due to a condition with which she was born. Look for her and Dolson to combine for some of their trademark teamwork on Saturday.
Western Conference
Like Coleman, Bonner has earned her first All-Star bid in her seventh season of play. Her 16.9 points per game place her seventh in the league in scoring, and the Phoenix guard’s 3.5 assists per game represent a career-high and place her in the top ten in the league. Bonner, the fifth overall pick out of Auburn in 2009, has helped lead the Mercury to second place in the Western Conference this season and will be joined on the All-Star squad by teammates Candice Dupree and Brittney Griner.
In her fifth season out of Ohio State, Lavender has established herself as a model of consistent progress. She has either improved upon or kept constant her production in every major per-game statistical category—points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals—each season, except for a slight drop in points per game in her second year. Such development has begotten career highs in each of those categories so far this year, placing her tenth in the league in scoring and sixth in the league in rebounding. Along with All-Star teammate Nneka Ogwumike, Lavender has been a bright spot for a Los Angeles Sparks team that has struggled at times in the first half of the season.
Like Dolson, McBride made this year’s All-Star Game in just the second season of her career. McBride, however, is no stranger to the spotlight. During her college career, she played in three NCAA championship contests—and in the one year that she did not, her Fighting Irish lost in the Final Four. While McBride never won a college championship, the experience that she gained during those tournament runs has certainly proved valuable in her transition to the professional game. This year, the guard-forward is fourteenth in the league in scoring, averaging 14 points per game to lead her San Antonio Stars. McBride will be joined by Stars teammate Danielle Robinson in the All-Star Game.
Plenette Pierson’s selection to this year’s All-Star Game stands as a testament to consistency, tenacity, and persistence. When Pierson joined the WNBA thirteen seasons ago, the youngest player on this year’s All-Star Roster, Stefanie Dolson, was just eleven years old. Though always a solid player—she has averaged nine or more points per game in nine of her thirteen seasons—the 2003 fourth overall pick out of Texas Tech had never qualified for an All-Star Game before this year. In 2007, she won the Sixth Woman of the Year Award with the Detroit Shock before the franchise moved to Tulsa, where she now plays. This season, the forward-center is scoring 12.9 points per game, eighteenth in the league and tied for her career-best.
Williams, a four-year supersub with the Tulsa Shock, earns All-Star recognition this year despite starting exactly half of the games in which she has played. The guard is perhaps the game’s premier substitute. In 2013, she collected the Sixth Woman of the Year Award in a season that saw her set the WNBA single-game scoring mark of 51 in a game against San Antonio, a record that still stands. This season, Williams has demonstrated that she can play equally adeptly as a starter, as she has been on the floor for the tip in nine of the Shock’s 18 games. She averages 14.7 points, twelfth in the league, and has achieved career-highs in assists per game, rebounds per game, and three point shooting percentage thus far this season.