Tina Charles
AP Photo/Jessica Hill

The New York Liberty’s leading scorer was nominated for her third straight All-Star squad. Tina Charles will join Kia Nurse in Las Vegas.

Geoff Magliocchetti

New York Liberty frontcourt star Tina Charles was one of a dozen athletes named to the 2019 WNBA All-Star Game’s reserves list. This invitation is her seventh in nine WNBA seasons.

Charles, 30, leads the Liberty (7-10) in scoring at 19.7 points per game. That average currently stands at third in the league. Her season-best tally came on opening night at Westchester County Center on May 24. She scored 32 points in an 81-80 loss to Indiana.

Last week, Charles took home her 30th career WNBA Player of the Week honor, repping the Eastern Conference. She served as a vital catalyst of the Liberty’s four-game winning streak, averaging 20.7 points and 8.3 rebounds in a trio of road victories. Wins in Seattle and Phoenix ended with the eventual winning basket coming from Charles’ hands in the contests’ dying stages.

2019’s slate is half-over but has already seen plenty of Charles milestones. She became the Liberty’s all-time leading scorer on June 4 at Westchester County Center and also became just the seventh player in league history to earn 3,000 career rebounds during the aforementioned win in Phoenix on July 5. The Queens native also now sits as the 12th-leading scorer in WNBA history in just her ninth professional season.

This marks Charles’ fourth All-Star appearance bearing Liberty colors. Only Teresa Weatherspoon has earned more nominations under the New York banner (five). Charles has also now reached six consecutive All-Star Games, accounting for the skipped 2016 exhibition that was canceled for the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The 2019 WNBA All-Star Game will be held on July 27 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC). Charles will be joined by Liberty teammate Kia Nurse. The second-year guard was named one of the ten starters chosen through primarily fan voting. Nurse will be making her All-Star debut.

As such, it marks the second time in the past three years that the Liberty have sent multiple representatives to the showcase. Charles and Sugar Rodgers were the lucky pair in 2017’s game in Seattle.

The hosting Las Vegas Aces and the Chicago Sky each have the most All-Stars with three apiece.

Among the other notable names added to the reserves with Charles is Candice Dupree of the Indiana Fever. Like Charles, Dupree will be making her seventh All-Star appearance. Reserves joining Nurse in All-Star debuting are Diamond DeShields (Chicago), Odyssey Sims (Minnesota), and Erica Wheeler (Indiana). The reserves were chosen through a WNBA coach’s poll.

The game is set to use a “fantasy draft” format for the second consecutive season. Local heroine A’ja Wilson will captain a team, as will Elena Delle Donne of the Washington Mystics. The pair earned captaincy privileges by earning the most fan votes.

The Liberty have two games remaining before the All-Star hiatus. They’ll battle the Los Angeles Sparks at home this Saturday (3:00 p.m. ET, NBA TV/Fox Sports Go) before a Wednesday late morning matinee in Connecticut.

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