Welcome back to The Morning Win. One half of the WNBA Finals field is set.
The first spot in the championship round belongs to the Phoenix Mercury, who beat the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday to clinch a 3-1 series victory and their first trip to the finals since 2021 when Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi were still playing in the desert. This isn’t exactly how most people predicted the season to go.
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With three straight losing seasons following their last finals trip, including two first-round playoff exits, the Mercury seemed destined for a long drought before a return to those old glory days. They were trending down. But the 2025 offseason headlined by a trade for Alyssa Thomas changed that trajectory.
Not only are the Mercury back in the finals, they went through the two reigning finalists to get there, beating last year’s champion New York Liberty in the first round before topping Minnesota. No player deserves a bigger chunk of credit for their surprising rise than Thomas, who might be the most underrated winner in the WNBA.
As a quick reminder: before Thomas arrived in Phoenix, she was part of a Connecticut Sun team that made the playoffs eight straight years from 2017-2024, including two trips to the WNBA Finals. Though she’s yet to win a championship, she was a major part of Connecticut’s consistent success, earning top-five MVP consideration her final three years there. And when she left (with others), the Sun became one of the W’s worst teams while the Mercury became one of the last teams standing.
Thomas is the common denominator, once again putting herself in MVP conversation in 2025, finishing third in voting behind A’ja Wilson and Napheesa Collier. She fills the box score like no one else in the WNBA, as demonstrated in her series-clinching performance Sunday where she put up 23 points, eight rebounds and 10 assists. She’s the first player to lead her team in points, rebounds and assists in multiple series-clinching wins, according to ESPN Insights, and this year isn’t even her first time doing it.
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Title or not, Thomas puts her team in positions to compete — and this year might be her best chance yet to cap all that winning with a ring. Phoenix’s finals opponent will be the winner of Tuesday’s Game 5 between the Indiana Fever and Las Vegas Aces. The Mercury would probably prefer Indiana over a Vegas team that won two of the last three titles, including 2022 over Thomas and the Sun. But no matter who they play, they won’t back down. That’s not in the DNA of a team led by Thomas.
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This article originally appeared on For The Win: Alyssa Thomas takes Phoenix Mercury to same heights she took the Sun
