Lynx guard Karlie Samuelson, who left the court in a wheelchair Sunday, will have surgery and miss the rest of the season, the team announced Friday.
Samuelson had an MRI on her left foot and met with Mayo Clinic foot and ankle specialist Dr. Norman Turner III before the decision was made.
Samuelson’s leg buckled during the second quarter of a 102-63 victory over Connecticut. A wheelchair was brought out for her.
A 6-foot guard, she played in 16 games for the Lynx, averaging 14.3 minutes, 3.3 points and 1.1 assists. She made 33.3% of her shots but was better on three-pointers, shooting 35.3%.
The Lynx added Samuelson on draft day in April, trading their 2026 first-round pick to Washington for her. Lynx coach and President of Basketball Operations Cheryl Reeve said then Samuelson was a player the Lynx “pursued through a fair amount of the offseason. And then, there finally was an opening.”
Samuelson, 30, who played at Stanford with Lynx center Alanna Smith, is on her sixth WNBA team. She went undrafted in 2017 but caught on with Los Angeles.
Her breakout season came in 2023, when she started 23 games for Los Angeles and averaged 7.7 points, shooting nearly 43 percent on three-pointers. She played the next season for Washington under Eric Thibault, now the Lynx’s associate head coach, starting 19 games and averaging 8.4 points.
