In No Offseason, The Athletic follows the paths of women’s basketball players after their WNBA seasons’ end and their travels begin. From Turkey, Israel, Italy, Czech Republic, Mexico and even here in the U.S., our reporters tell the stories of these players as they chase their dreams and try to shape the future of the WNBA.
Four days after her 24th birthday, Maya Caldwell went after a missed shot that would eventually derail her winter. A WNBA guard for the Indiana Fever, she was playing overseas for Israel’s Maccabi Ramat Gan when early in the fourth quarter of a Dec. 19 matchup, Caldwell crashed the offensive glass looking to extend an already double-digit lead. She saw one of her teammates, forward Jillian Alleyne, in better position to retrieve the errant attempt, so Caldwell eased up. Nevertheless, she hopped into the air.
When Caldwell came down, she says she “just barely grazed” the back of an opposing player’s heel. She heard a crack and crawled to the nearby sideline. When she told teammates of the sound, “people’s faces kind of changed a little bit,” she remembers.
Caldwell had broken the fifth metatarsal — the bone that connects to one’s pinky toe — in her left foot. While a doctor in the emergency room she visited on the night of the…
