Lynx All-Star Kayla McBride headed for WNBA three-point shooting contest

While three Lynx players are headed to the Olympics, another has a little more basketball left before the league’s monthlong break.

“Don’t forget our little All-Star, everybody,” Natisha Hiedeman joked after Wednesday’s victory over Atlanta.

That All-Star, Kayla McBride, will play for the WNBA against Team USA in Phoenix on Saturday. She assured Hiedeman “I’m going to get up at least five threes” in the game.

Technically, McBride is guaranteed to shoot at least 27 threes at this weekend’s WNBA All-Star festivities. A leader on the league’s best three-point-shooting squad, the Lynx guard has another shot at the WNBA three-point contest title after finishing runner up in 2018 and 2019.

“When you lose to one of the best shooters ever, it’s okay,” McBride said about her loss to Allie Quigley in 2018, when Quigley set a new three-point contest record. “You can sleep at night.”

McBride, 32, heads to Phoenix for her fourth All-Star game and her first in a Lynx jersey. Minnesota has had plenty of All-Stars but never a three-point contest winner. McBride could become the first on Friday night before the league’s All-Stars face Team USA’s Olympic roster on Saturday.

“It’s different wearing Lynx across your chest and being an All-Star. It just carries so much more weight for me and how long I’ve been in this league,” McBride said. “I played against those dynasty [Lynx] teams, and so I remember all the players that have come through here.”

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In the past two weeks, McBride’s performance has been the Lynx’s lifeline and a reminder of why she’s an All-Star. Napheesa Collier, the Lynx’s leading scorer and a U.S. Olympian, has missed the past five games with plantar fasciitis pain. In her absence, McBride has averaged 19.2 points per game, including a 30-point performance against Atlanta on Wednesday.

“She knows before I say things, she knows before I react to something, she already knows what’s coming,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. “She’s really locked into what’s working, what needs to happen.”

In her 11th WNBA season, McBride is averaging 16.4 points per game and posting her best shooting year since joining the Lynx in 2020. She scored at least 25 points in three games during Minnesota’s Commissioner’s Cup title run and is shooting nearly as well from three (42.7%) as she is the entire floor (44.4%). She leads the league in three-pointers made this season (76) off the fifth-most amount of attempts from beyond the arc.

It has been five years since the last-time McBride, the Lynx’s most veteran player, earned All-Star honors, and she said that being back is a testament to how well the Lynx are playing.

“You question it,” McBride said about whether she thought she would ever return to the All-Star Game. “There’s so much talent in the league.”

McBride’s three-point prowess isn’t an anomaly on the current Lynx roster, which Reeve said was built to put up the sort of stats that it has in the season’s first 25 games. Among them: A league-best 38.4% three-point shooting. The league’s second-highest total number of threes made. Three of the top-10 most efficient three-point shooters this year. Alanna Smith, an Australian Olympian, and Bridget Carleton, who will play for Canada, join McBride on that list.

High shooting percentage from three forces opponents to “scramble and get to everyone,” Reeve said. “You can’t not scramble to someone. And so all of them being able to shoot spreads things out.”

McBride has said that her career shooting year has come from knowing herself better “as a basketball player, as a woman,” through journaling, focusing on mental health and family and “finding a joy in playing” within the Lynx organization.

“When you have that joy when adversity hits, that’s when you know you have something special. That’s a big part of it — going to work with people you love, every day,” McBride said. “The grass is greener where you water it.”

McBride will face Stefanie Dolson, Allisha Gray, Marina Mabrey and Jonquel Jones in Friday’s three-point contest. The WNBA confirmed Sabrina Ionescu and Caitlin Clark were both invited to participate, but declined.