'Front and Centre': Magbegor and Smith load up before Berlin

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Opals centre Ezi Magbegor played her heaviest minutes of the season as Seattle went down 84-82 to Nyadiew Puoch's Portland Fire in Seattle on Saturday, August 15, 2026, just 20 days out from the 2026 FIBA Women's World Cup.

Alanna Smith, 29, played hers on the same afternoon in Dallas, and between them they are two Australians who will hold up the Opals front court in Berlin.

Magbegor, 27, logged 27 minutes and Smith 35. They are starting to ramp up at exactly the right time.

Magbegor hurt her right foot in March playing for Australia in a World Cup qualifier against Hungary, and Seattle put the recovery at six to eight weeks. That became a first WNBA appearance on July 3, and then, four games later, a broken bone in her face.

She returned on July 31 and played 14 minutes, and the six games since have run 21, 17, 26, 26 and, on Saturday, 27.

Smith's season reads the same way from the other direction. She signed for the WNBA maximum at Dallas, took a facial injury in the pre-season and spent three months in single digits and low teens. Then August arrived and she went 32 minutes, then 27, 27, 33 and 35.

Her five heaviest games of the season have all come in the last ten days, after a May, June and July in which she cleared 27 minutes exactly twice, and that is the difference between a player being managed and a player back into regular minutes.

The games themselves went the other way for both of them.

Magbegor went 4-from-12 from the field, 2-from-4 from three and 3-from-3 at the line for 13 points and eight rebounds without turning it over once, and finished plus-16 on five fouls in a game her team lost by two. It is a losing line that reads like a winning one.

Smith had eight points on 4-from-11 with seven rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block as the Dallas Wings went down 98-87 to the Indiana Fever, and went 0-from-4 from deep to finish minus-5. Thirty-five minutes is a starter's night, and it was the shooting rather than the workload that did not come.

That the minutes matter more than the misses is Sandy Brondello's problem as much as anybody's, because when she named her 12 for Berlin on July 26 she attached a warning to it.

"With only three days together before the World Cup, continuity was an important factor," Brondello said.

Three days is not a training camp, and most Opals campaigns are built in one. Whatever contact, conditioning and rhythm Magbegor and Smith carry into Germany, they are getting it right now, in Seattle and in Dallas, in games that belong to somebody else.

Smith wears 11 and Magbegor 13, and between them they are the two biggest bodies Australia will put on the floor.

Two other Australians were on the court for the finish in Seattle, and the one who won it scored two points.

Jade Melbourne, 23, had 12 points on 4-from-12 with three triples from five attempts, two assists, a steal and a block in 34 minutes for the Storm, turning it over three times to finish plus-1. She turns 24 on Tuesday.

Puoch, 22, played 15 minutes off the Portland bench for two points on 1-from-4, three rebounds, two steals and an assist, and was minus-13 in a win, which is the sort of line that only ever looks strange written down.

Awa Fam led Seattle with 20 and Holly Winterburn matched her for Portland.

Eight of the twelve Australians on WNBA rosters did not play at all, and Seattle and Portland remain the only two clubs carrying more than one.

Magbegor and Melbourne are next in action against Dallas at 6:00am AEST on Monday, August 24, and Smith plays Golden State at midday on Tuesday.

The Opals open in Berlin on September 4.

FRIDAY'S GAMES

New York Liberty veteran Rebecca Allen, 33, put up 13 points and two steals as the Liberty survived a 21-0 Los Angeles run to win 85-81.

New York led 69-41 early in the fourth before the Sparks scored 21 straight and very nearly produced the biggest comeback in WNBA history. Los Angeles got within one when Rae Burrell finished a reverse layup with 22 seconds left, and Sabrina Ionescu, who top-scored with 20, had to make free throws twice in the last 15 seconds to close it out. The record they were chasing belongs to Chicago, who came back from 28 down against Las Vegas in 2022, and Burrell finished with a career-high 28, twenty of them in the fourth.

Allen played 26 minutes, had a rebound and an assist and did not turn the ball over once. She is the longest-serving Australian in the league and she is retiring at the end of this season, which makes every New York game from here a countable one.

Anneli Maley, 27, was not in New York's twelve, but she is a development player and is regularly held out to preserve her game eligibility, so read that as a roster decision rather than a form one.

Stephanie Talbot, 32, had five points, two rebounds and a block in 16 minutes as Las Vegas beat Georgia Amoore's Washington 83-76, with Amoore, 25, playing 26 minutes for three points, a rebound and an assist. Jackie Young scored 32 for the Aces and Shakira Austin answered with 29 for the Mystics.

Isobel Borlase, 21, scored five in 12 minutes as Atlanta dismantled Connecticut 104-69, where Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray scored 29 apiece and Angel Reese pulled down 15 rebounds to set an Atlanta single-season franchise record, reaching 375 boards in 32 games.

Every Australian, every game, all season: Aussies in the WNBA.