Phee’s Back

The Minnesota Lynx are comfy.

They woke up Wednesday morning at the top of the WNBA standings with a 21-6 record, the league's best net rating, and a bespectacled point guard who has https://defector.com/olivia-miles-is-the-throwback-point-guard-of-the-future">become the coolest player in the league halfway through her first season.

These are the sort of circumstances that allow for an organization to be extremely chill in coming up with a plan for reintegrating a four-time All-WNBA superstar back into the starting lineup.

It doesn't get much more chill than a Wednesday afternoon road game against the Seattle Storm, one day before the start of the all-star break.

Those are the circumstances under which Napheesa Collier returned to the court for the Lynx.

The Lynx won the game, 86-76, and afterwards all the talk was about how Collier, returning to action following offseason surgeries on both of her ankles, is going to be taking it slow.

"This is an evolution," head coach Cheryl Reeve said after the game, about Collier's reintegration. "We're not at the end of this ... there will still be ups and downs.

There's no doubt about it." That echoed Reeve's pregame caution, when she stressed to reporters that Collier has "a couple more steps to go" and would be playing on a minutes restriction.