Why is Sabrina Ionescu not in the WNBA’s 3-Point Contest this weekend in Chicago? She won it last year, as well as in 2023, when she put up a record round of 37. Ionescu even briefly revitalized the NBA’s competition in 2024 by going head-to-head with Steph Curry, only narrowly losing to the NBA legend.
However, Ionescu is not even in the pool of participants this time around.
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There are a host of reasons that could explain this: Ionescu did not make the All-Star game amid an injury-plagued campaign for New York, while up-and-comers like Azzi Fudd and Rhyne Howard will replace some of Ionescu’s star power. But across the WNBA and NBA, if a reigning victor wants to participate in any of the All-Star weekend festivities, they are welcomed back.
At a press conference leading into All-Star weekend, Ionescu claimed she was never invited.
“I can’t decline an offer that I officially didn’t get invited to,” she said.
To find out what really happened here, we return to Dan Patrick, who has become quite a pot-stirrer for the WNBA recently.
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During his radio show on Thursday and Friday, Patrick reported on the seeming miscommunication between the WNBA and Ionescu’s camp.
“We reached out to the WNBA, and surprise, surprise, they actually got back to us,” Patrick teased. “And they gave us a spokesperson, someone affiliated with the All-Star festivities. And this person said they reached out to Sabrina Ionescu the same way they did the two previous times … now I don’t know what that was, because the person didn’t say.”
Then, Patrick said, his show reached out to Ionescu’s representatives to verify the story.
“We got one word, in capital letters: NO,” Patrick said.
Later, Patrick provided his analysis of what is going on behind the scenes.
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“Somebody is covering up for something here, or someone,” he said. “It sounded like Sabrina Ionescu was miffed she didn’t get invited, and wanted to get invited. And I don’t know, since she’s not an All-Star, and some players don’t compete in events if they’re not All-Stars, I don’t know if that had something to do with this.
“But once again, here we have a disconnect, a miscommunication moment, going into the All-Star game.”
Patrick also called attention to the word “officially” in Ionescu’s response, wondering whether she was subtly taking issue with an informal ask versus a more professional one she would have preferred.
Coming off multiple instances in which Patrick has called out the WNBA for mismanaging bad PR and shying away from accountability, he once again lamented the constant distractions that he believes are self-inflicted by the league.
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“The WNBA keeps having too many of these moments,” he said. “We should be celebrating, and we’re not.”
“You do have great players, great stories. But we keep going back to the same ones. Why? It starts at the top. The commissioner’s gotta talk about this.”
Notably, Caitlin Clark will once again also not participate in the 3-Point Contest, which Patrick explained as perhaps the superstar trying to take the spotlight off herself. Ionescu, on the other hand, clearly relishes the chance to compete in the contest — and is not getting it.
The post Dan Patrick reveals conflicting stories from WNBA, Sabrina Ionescu’s camp over 3-point contest invite appeared first on Awful Announcing.
