LOS ANGELES – Just before Los Angeles Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts’ pregame press conference on Friday, she had been meeting with her staff talking about potential reasons for the uptick in injuries this WNBA season.

The Sparks have been relatively healthy since Cameron Brink returned to the lineup on July 29. Since then, Friday’s game against Indiana marked the 11th straight game the team has had a clean injury report. That was in stark contrast to the Fever who have multiple players out for the season with multiple hardship contracts signed.

During Roberts’ pregame media availability, she pondered the potential reasons as to why the WNBA has seen multiple injuries to key players this year.

“I was just talking to my staff about it, wondering what do you think it is, why are there so many injuries? There’s probably a lot of reasons, and I think. . .you have to look at the whole calendar year for these athletes, not just the W season,” Roberts said. “They’re playing overseas, they’re not getting that break that most professional athletes get. There really is no offseason.

“I think you can look at that, you can look at the physicality, you can look at. . .over the past few years the time in between games has shrunk. I’m not the person in the room to make those decisions, but I think it’s a great question,” Roberts continued. “I think everyone is asking it, and I’m certain the league and the owners and all the powers that be will evaluate and really kind of peel back the layers as to what’s going on. . .So hopefully we can find a fix, but I don’t know the answer.”

While Roberts and the Sparks have enjoyed good health for the majority of the second half of the season, they were almost a mirror image of where the Fever are right now. Against the Sparks, the Fever were missing Caitlin Clark, Sydney Colson, Sophie Cunningham and Aari McDonald. In the case of the latter three, they are all out for the season. Clark’s status is a little more unclear.

Earlier this year, the Sparks were missing Cameron Brink and Rae Burrell due to injury, and Julie Allemand due to EuroBasket. Rickea Jackson missed time due to league-mandated concussion protocol and Odyssey Sims missed time due to personal reasons. Sims has since signed with the Fever on a hardship contract.

Brink has been one of the league’s most vocal proponents of expanding roster size from the current number of 12 players, because of the seeming increase in injuries. The WNBA is set to expand to 15 teams next season with the additions of the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo. This comes a year after the league expanded to 13 teams with the Golden State Valkyries.

By 2030, the WNBA is expected to have 18 teams as new franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia are added.