Aari McDonald proved to be a major fan favorite last seaon when she joined the Indiana Fever, and that goodwill carried over even after she suffered a foot injury and was unable to finish the 2025 season. The Fever made it to the second round of playoffs last year.
McDonald has been missing in action for most of the 2026 WNBA season, but that's about to change in a huge way. The Minnesota Lynx announced during the FIBA World Cup break that the team signed McDonald as backup for Olivia Miles — and the timing couldn't be better.
While speaking to reporters this week, Reeve explained the decision to waive Eliska Jokolva and sign McDonald came down to one thing: experience. Reeve made it clear that she wanted another player on the roster who knows what it takes to get to the next level, and McDonald fits the bill. The Lynx are the top team in the WNBA, a position they've held all season, and the team is chasing their first WNBA Championship since 2017.
Aari McDonald has been here before
While some players might be rattled by the prospect of joining a title-chasing team, especially one that is performing exceptionally well, McDonald knows a thing or two about how to handle that experience. She joined the Fever in 2025 at a point in the season during which the team made it clear they wanted to win it all, and she did so without missing a beat. She thrilled fans while Caitlin Clark was on the sidelines dealing with an injury, and she proved that the Fever could handle playing with or without Clark when they needed to.
Unfortunately, her own season was cut short when she suffered a foot injury. That injury lingered and impacted her time in Miami during the second season of Unrivaled, where she suffered another injury as well. McDonald wasn't picked up by a team at the beginning of the 2026 WNBA season. The Fever signed Ty Harris as the team's backup guard, and McDonald has mostly been missing in action this year.
That's all about to change. Though Miles will very likely grab most of the minutes available to her, McDonald can expect to see some action on the court. McDonald has been to the playoffs before with the Atlanta Dream, and she knows what that pressure feels like — now it's up to her to show she knows how to lead a team through it.
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