Unrivaled is in week two of the league's second season, and there are already mounting articles and online conversations about one topic: injuries. That's probably not a big surprise to anyone who followed the 2025 WNBA season, which saw a record number of injuries all season long and also sparked serious conversations about physicality and officiating in the league.
Some of those conversations have carried to over to Unrivaled, especially since it's seemed like a lot of plays are unable to play because they're hurt. While it's tempting to point to Unrivaled alone as the culprit, the fact of the matter is that several of the injured players suffered their initial injury in the W this season, or were back on the court for the first time in months (such was the case for Aari McDonald, who injured her foot during her first Unrivaled game — which was also her first pro basketball game in five months).
The first season of Unrivaled sparked plenty of conversations and comparisons to the WNBA, and some insisted that the 3x3 league may be too risky for WNBA players. For example, the Liberty announced Betnijah Laney-Hamilton would miss five to six months of league play after she hurt her knee in Miami last year — and now we're beginning to see that the reverse may be true, too. (Unrivaled announced both Napheesa Collier and Sabrina Ionescu would miss the league's entire second season due to injuries they sustained while playing in the W.) A source with knowledge of both leagues told High Post Hoops Unrivaled's first season had a lower injury rate than the 2025 WNBA season — and pointed out that when it comes to further injury reports, the league only has one season of data to go off of.
Unrivaled's visibility in the US is a blessing and a curse
When it comes to injury reports and player status, the visibility that Unrivaled receives in the US plays a role in how conversations about hurt players take place, offline and on. After all, most reporters and fans aren't paying that much attention to what's going on overseas during the offseason, and plenty of WNBA players get injured there, too. The difference is that no one is wondering if we should ban WNBA players from playing overseas, something they've been doing as long as the league has existed.
(Last season Kelsey Mitchell fractured her finger while playing in China, but there weren't a lot of discussions about whether or not playing overseas could potentially hurt the Fever once the league resumed.)
All of the attention Unrivaled receives is undoubtedly more good than not for the league; after all, that attention is what brings people to games and has them tuning in to watch from home. But it would serve the league's supporters well to remember that if Unrivaled were being played elsewhere, fans might not be as aware of who is hurt and who isn't, and well-intentioned but somewhat misguided online discussions may not proliferate women's basketball spaces the way that they do.
At the end of the day, injuries are a part of any sport or any physical activity. It will be difficult to make any kind of legitimate assessment of Unrivaled's viability that's based on rate of injury until there's more data — and for that to happen, the league has to be allowed to carry on and grow.