Alyssa Thomas will start the WNBA All-Star Game on the bench. She's responded to the snub by making history night after night.

• Alyssa Thomas is an early frontrunner for WNBA MVP, but she wasn't named a 2023 All-Star starter.
• The 6-foot-2 Connecticut Sun star suffered from a relatively low vote among WNBA fans.

Alyssa Thomas is "legit one of the best players in the world," according to two-time WNBA champion teammate DeWanna Bonner, and is widely considered a top contender for 2023 WNBA MVP honors.

And yet, the Connecticut Sun superstar will start this year's WNBA All-Star Game in an unexpected place — on the bench.

Just a few weeks shy of the season's halfway point, the do-it-all forward is averaging 14.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 8.0 assists per game to help her squad to the third-best record in the league. She ranks first across the entire WNBA in rebounds per game, steals per game (2.1), defensive win shares (1.5), and total minutes played (591), while her eight assists per contest clock in at second in the league behind consummate point guard Courtney Vandersloot.

How she wasn't voted into the starting lineup for the July 15 All-Star Game in Las Vegas is a mystery to Bonner, a five-time All-Star who doubles as Thomas' girlfriend.

"With what she's doing on the court, she should have been an All-Star starter — simple," Bonner said Sunday.

The process of earning a starting nod involves a voting system with input from current players, media members (including the author of this article), and WNBA fans. Among the frontcourt contenders, Thomas ranked fourth for media and seventh for players — each of which accounted for 25% of the total vote.

But fans, who made up the other 50% of the tally, placed her 10th in the category — perhaps due to her understated off-court demeanor or the small market of her franchise. Thomas would have secured a starting spot had fans placed her in the top-five.

Now, the 6-foot-2 star is ensuring WNBA fans remember her name. Thomas has notched triple-doubles — 10+ points, rebounds, and assists — in both games she's played since the All-Star starters announcement on Sunday, twice breaking her own record for most career triple-doubles in the WNBA.

No other player in league history has achieved the feat more than three times in their entire career. Thomas, meanwhile, has earned seven career triple-doubles — including three in the past week alone.

"Man, there's just no one like her in the world," Bonner said. "And now she's the all time leader in triple-doubles, it's kind of like, what you're gonna do next?"