Thomas’ incredible recovery and return
Forward back on court after grueling Achilles injury rehab
Late in the third quarter of Game 2 of the WNBA semifinals, with the Connecticut Sun down four, Alyssa Thomas got the ball on the right baseline. She took two dribbles, backing into Chicago’s Azurá Stevens, before spinning and using her body position herself closer to the basket.
She missed the shot, but with four Chicago defenders and a Connecticut Sun teammate underneath the basket, Thomas still snagged the rebound. She hoisted it up twice more before Kaila Charles came away with a defensive board and kicked it out to Natisha Hiedeman beyond the arc. Hiedeman promptly fired a pass to an open Thomas in the paint, who ricocheted her
body off Stefanie Dolson for a layup to make it a one-possession game.
That’s the very relentlessness, toughness and determination Thomas, who’s played her entire WNBA career with the Sun, has made herself synonymous with throughout her eight years in the league. And it’s the same relentless, toughness and determination that made it possible for her to push through a grueling rehab after tearing her Achilles playing overseas in January and to return to the court for the championship-hungry Sun less than nine months after.
“We could do the same exact [rehab] program with someone else and not have
the results that she’s had because of her mindset,” said Nicole Alexander, the Sun’s head athletic trainer. “She had made the decision [to try to come back], and she worked her butt off every single day to get where she is.”
On Jan. 11, toward the end of practice with USK Praha, Thomas was playing 5x5 and running back on defense. She went to change direction and all the sudden felt like somebody stepped on the back of her shoe, or that her ankle brace popped.
She felt shooting pain and crumbled to the floor. She knew instantly that she’d torn her Achilles.
Over the next eight days, Thomas flew home from Prague and underwent surgery. Thomas’ Sun teammate and girlfriend DeWanna Bonner, then in Israel where she was fortunately only contracted to play two games, rushed back as soon as she could to meet Thomas in Maryland shortly after her surgery.
The first few days after the operation, Thomas didn’t leave her room. Her blinds were kept shut and her parents brought her food. She was lethargic from the medicine and moving around on crutches was too uncomfortable.
Bonner wouldn’t let that last.
“I was like, ‘Okay, get up, get dressed,’” she said the morning after arriving in Maryland. “‘We’re going to get out of here.’”
They didn’t know where they were going, but it didn’t matter. Bonner prepped the backseat of the car with pillows so that Thomas could put her leg up. They found their way to Krispy Kreme for donuts, drove around looking at houses and went to Starbucks.
From that moment on Thomas came out of her room every single day.
“That was the turning point,” Bonner said.
“It got me out of my funk,” Thomas added.
After watching the likes of Breanna Stewart and Kevin Durant bounce back stronger than ever following Achilles tears, Thomas didn’t fear that the injury would derail her career. Still, “it kind of happened at the worst time.” After playing some of the best basketball of her career in the 2020 WNBA bubble, it was a contract year for her both overseas and in the WNBA. Her injury occurred three weeks to the day before the start of WNBA free agency.
Things worked out on both fronts — the Sun re-signed Thomas to a multiyear deal and she’ll be back with USK Praha immediately following the Sun’s playoff run. The next eight months, though, would be “one of the toughest things that I’ve ever been through,” she said.
Thomas was no stranger to injuries. She adapted her game to play with torn labra in her shoulders that haven’t been surgically repaired.
She dislocated her shoulder in Game 2 of the semifinals last season but returned two days later to put up 23 points, and 12 rebounds in a Sun win.
But she’d never had an injury this serious or a recovery process that’d require this much patience. She had to learn how to walk again. It took her two months to be back in two shoes, and a whole other month until she felt like she could walk without a limp. When she arrived to Connecticut in late April for training camp, she could barely fit a piece of paper under her heel doing a calf raise.
“I’m so used to just bouncing back after having an injury,” Thomas said. “Knowing that you have to really take your time with this was hard.”
Because of how strong she was pre-injury, Alexander says, it was easier to train Thomas to get back to that level. And while patience could be tough for her to come by at times (“she’s not a woman of patience at all,” Bonner laughs), Thomas put in the work behind the scenes to make her 2021 WNBA return possible.
“It was harder for me to get her to take days off than it was for me to get her to push harder,” Alexander said. “She’s used to going until she can’t anymore ... they call her the “Engine” for a reason.”
All along, Thomas had moments of frustration when she wasn’t able to do things like she could pre-injury, or if something didn’t feel like normal. But she was progressing far better than she was giving herself credit for.
“Everybody on the outside was like ‘This is insane, this is crazy like how much progress she’s making so fast,’ but she just wanted more and more,” Bonner said. “For her, that wasn’t enough.”
Thomas ran for the first time at the end of May and by the time the Olympic break rolled around, she knew she’d start doing individual workouts with player development coach Awvee Storey upon the team’s return.
Thomas progressed from drills to contact and 5x5 play in practices with the team before timing her season debut for the Sun’s penultimate regular-season game Sept. 15 so that her return to be in front of a home crowd. Already, her instinct has been wanting to get back to normal Alyssa Thomas, and now “Playoff AT,” as quickly as possible.
“After Game One [of the semifinals] she was really hard on herself like, ‘Man, I can’t believe I missed that many shots,’” Bonner recalls. “‘This is just not like me, I don’t like this feeling’... I’m like, ‘this is your [third] game back.. you’re fine, you’re fine,’ and she just still wasn’t understanding.’”
In Game 2 against the Sky, with the Sun trailing most of the game and at risk of falling behind 0-2 in the series, she had the closest thing to a vintage Alyssa Thomas performance we’ve seen to date. Her 15 points, 11 rebounds and six assists, including a late scoring push and defensive tenacity in the fourth, propelled the Sun to outscore the Sky 21-9 in that frame and come away with a double-figure victory.
“Now the ball is rolling,” Bonner said. “You’ve unleashed the dragon. She has confidence now.”
That may be bad news for the Sky, which hosts Games 3 and 4 in Chicago Sunday and Tuesday, and any other opponent in Thomas’ way.
“That’s how much passion she has for her team and the Connecticut Sun,” said Brenda Frese, Thomas’ former coach at Maryland. “You always can feel her heart and soul in wanting to bring a championship to the Sun.”