Nika Mühl: The Long Wait

The Pick

Pick twenty-one. Second round. Portland selected Nika Mühl from the Seattle Storm knowing she had torn her right ACL eleven days earlier. Knowing she wouldn't play a single minute in 2026. Knowing this was her second ACL tear in less than eighteen months.

That's not charity. That's the expansion draft math. You use a late second-round pick on a player whose rights would otherwise cost nothing because the talent justifies the patience. Muhl holds the UConn career assist record. She sees passes that other players don't know exist. If she gets healthy, Portland has a playmaker who can run an offense at the highest level. If she doesn't, they lost a late-round pick. The risk-reward calculus works.

UConn Legacy

Nika Mühl is the all-time career assist leader at the University of Connecticut. UConn. The program that has produced more WNBA talent than anywhere on earth. Diana Taurasi played there. Sue Bird played there. Breanna Stewart played there. And Muhl holds a record that none of them hold. That's not a footnote. That's a statement about her vision and her ability to make the players around her better.

She was a four-year starter in Storrs, running Geno Auriemma's offense and defending like her hair was on fire. The defensive intensity was always the calling card, the thing that made coaches trust her with 35 minutes a game. But the passing is what separates her. She sees the floor like a point guard from a different era, the kind who would rather thread a bounce pass through traffic than take an open jumper.

Seattle drafted her 14th overall in 2024. She played 16 games with the Storm. The stat line was tiny: 2 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, 0.1 PPG. But rookie point guards in the WNBA almost never produce immediately. The league is too fast, too physical, too unforgiving of mistakes. Muhl was adjusting. Then the first knee went.

Two ACL Tears

October 2024. Playing overseas in Turkey during the WNBA offseason. Left ACL. Torn. Surgery. Months of rehab. She missed the entire 2025 WNBA season.

March 11, 2026. Playing for Croatia in FIBA EuroBasket qualifiers. Right ACL. Torn. Surgery on March 31. She will miss the entire 2026 WNBA season.

Two ACL tears. Two different knees. Before age 24. There's no way to write around how devastating that is. ACL recovery in women's basketball is one of the hardest roads in professional sports. The re-tear rate is real. The psychological toll is enormous. Every cut, every plant, every change of direction carries a question mark that takes months of game reps to silence. And now she has to do it twice, on the other side.

Some players come back from two ACL tears and play at a high level. Some don't. Nobody can predict which path Muhl will take. What we know is that her talent is not in question. Her body is.

What to Watch in 2026

She won't play. That's the reality. Muhl will not take the floor for the Portland Fire in 2026. Not for the May 9 home opener. Not for any of the 44 regular season games. She is rehabbing a torn right ACL with surgery less than a week old as of this writing.

But she will be in the building. She'll be at Moda Center learning the playbook, studying film, building relationships with Sug Sutton and Haley Jones and the rest of the backcourt. She'll be in the training facility rehabbing alongside the medical staff. The work she does in 2026 is the foundation for everything that happens in 2027.

If you're in the arena this season, look for her on the bench. That's a player who should be on the court, doing the thing she does better than almost anyone. Instead she's watching and waiting. Again.

The Person

Muhl is from Zagreb, Croatia. She represents the Croatian national team, which is where the second ACL tear happened: playing for her country in a EuroBasket qualifier. That detail matters. She wasn't doing something reckless. She was representing Croatia on an international stage, doing what every national team player dreams of doing, and her knee gave out.

At UConn, she was famously close with Paige Bueckers. The two were inseparable on and off the court. When Bueckers tore her own ACL in 2022, Muhl was there for the rehab. Now Muhl is the one going through it. Twice. The support system around her is strong, but support systems don't heal ligaments. Time and surgery and grueling daily rehab do that.

Portland is betting on 2027. They're betting that a 24-year-old with two rebuilt knees and the UConn career assist record will find a way back to the court. It's a patient bet, a compassionate bet, and an honest bet on talent that you can't teach. The Portland community will be waiting for her when she's ready.