WNBA names Sylvia Fowles, Sue Bird ASG captains, Brittney Griner an honorary starter

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Minnesota center Sylvia Fowles and Seattle guard Sue Bird, who both will retire at the end of the season, will be co-captains along with Las Vegas forward A'ja Wilson and Seattle forward Breanna Stewart. There is a time and place in Chicago.

The Phoenix center, who has been held in Russia, will be an All-Star starter. He has been an All- Star seven times.

Bird and Fowles will be playing in the All-Star Game for the eighth and 13th times, respectively. Wilson and Stewart will be the official team co-captains and pick their squad during the All-Star Team Selection Special on July 2nd. There is an hour and a half time. The first thing they will do is pick from the pool of eight starters and 12 reserves.

Along with the aforementioned four, the other starting players are Connecticut forward Jonquel Jones, Los Angeles forward Nneka Ogwomike, Chicago forward-center and New York's Sabrina Ionescu, all guards. The first All-Star selection for former No. 1 picks is Ionescu.

The co-captains are Bird, Wilson, and Fowles.

"For icons like Sylvia and Sue to be voted into the AT&T WNBA All-Star Game as a starter in their 15th and 19th seasons, respectively, is extraordinary," the league's commissioner said. It makes sense that Sylvia and Sue will join A'ja and Breanna as co-stars, since they have said this will be their last season.

The league wanted to honor the player.

She has been selected as an All-Star in each of the last four seasons. She would once again be selected and would show off her incredible talents if she were here with us. We continue to work on her safe return to the U.S., so it's only right that she be named as a starter today.

Fans accounted for 50% of the vote for the starter, while the players and the media panel accounted for 25%. Stewart was the leader in fan voting.

Fan votes, player votes and media votes were used to rank players by position within each voting group. The player's score was calculated using her weighted rank from the fan votes, the player votes and the media votes. Four guards and six frontcourt players started. The players in a position group with the same score were the ones who got the fan vote.

There was a lot of consistency between fan, media and player voting. Bird was third with fans, seventh with players and ninth with media. He was third with fans, seventh with media and 13th with players.

The Phoenix guard was third with the media, fourth with the fans and 14th with the players, among those who did not make the starting pool. Arike was fourth with the media, players and fans.

The coaches of the league will vote on the reserves on Tuesday. The coaches will vote for three guards, five frontcourt players and four players at either position, and they are not allowed to vote for their own players. A replacement will be chosen if a player can't play in the game.