Minnesota Lynx forward/guard Karima Christmas-Kelly suffered a ruptured right Achilles tendon in Tuesday's loss to Seattle and will miss the rest of the WNBA season. It was the first serious injury of the WNBA season, which began on Saturday.
Christmas-Kelly, 30, is in her 10th season in the WNBA but has now been plagued by injuries three years in a row. She was limited to six games in 2018 while with Dallas because of knee surgery. Then, after signing as a free agent with Minnesota in February 2019, she played just six games last season because of a knee injury.
She was chosen one of the Lynx team captains for this season, and Tuesday was her second game of the league's 22-game season, shortened by the coronavirus pandemic.
Christmas-Kelly was a second-round draft pick by Washington in 2011 out of Duke, and she has played with the Mystics, Tulsa, Indiana, Dallas and Minnesota in her career. She was part of Indiana's 2012 WNBA championship team.
Her top scoring season was 2016, when she averaged 12.4 points per game for Dallas. For her WNBA career, she has averaged 7.9 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists.
Christmas-Kelly is married to former Duke football player Austin Kelly, who is now director of recruiting for the Vanderbilt women's basketball team.
With Christmas-Kelly out, the Lynx still have 11 players on their roster, which has a maximum of 12. Coach Cheryl Reeve said in a recent Zoom call that guard Odyssey Sims, who has been out after giving birth to a son in April, would be joining the team at some point this season but didn't give a specific date. Sims led Minnesota in scoring (14.5) and assists (5.4) last season.