For the second straight season, Napheesa Collier finished second behind A’ja Wilson in the WNBA MVP race.
But while it was easy to accept losing last year because Wilson had a phenomenal season, Collier was the MVP frontrunner for the majority of the season before a late surge by her rival turned the tide heading to the homestretch.
Advertisement
Despite what many feel like an MVP snub, the Minnesota Lynx star said she didn’t even think about it because she was more focused on the larger goal at hand.
“The team is way bigger than me,” she said. “Whatever my personal goals are, I’m here for the team and right now, we’re focused on a championship. So, it was easy not to think about that.”
Phee accomplished her preseason goal of a 50-40-90 season
As Collier mentioned earlier this month she and head coach Cheryl Reeve sat down before the start of the season with the goal of getting more consistent with her 3-point shot so that she could accomplish the first 50-40-90 season since former Washington Mystics star Elena Delle Donne became the first player to do so in 2019.
Advertisement
Collier achieved that goal, finishing the 2025 regular season with shooting splits of .531/.403/.906, while topping Delle Donne by becoming the first player in the league to do it with a 20-plus point scoring average.
Reeve said that attaining that while being the best player on the best regular season team in the league merited Collier the 2025 WNBA MVP award.
“It had only been done once before and that player was the MVP of the league and Phee deserves that same recognition. And the numbers don’t lie. I think that’s something that voters should look at. It’s from start to finish. A 50-40-90 is historic. I don’t know how long it will be before it happens again. And so Napheesa Collier has been the best player in the WNBA this season and deserves MVP,”said Reeve.
Advertisement
The voters gave Wilson her fourth MVP award
But as we saw on Sunday, NBA commissioner Cathy Englebert flew to Las Vegas, not Minnesota, along with NBA star Bam Adebayo to award Wilson an unprecedented fourth WNBA MVP award.
Wilson had a strong finish to the season, where she ended up as the league leader in points per game, total points scored, total rebounds, blocks per game, win shares, offensive win shares, defensive win shares and player efficiency rating.
Advertisement
Later, it was learned that A’ja earned 51 out of 72 first-place votes to win the award, while Phee only had 18 first-place votes.
The final tally was, however, close, at 657-534, but that was because of the weighted scoring method of counting votes.
But despite losing the MVP race, Phee got a consolation prize of sorts later on Sunday.
Wilson struggled with 16 points on 6-22 shooting as her Aces were upset by the Indiana Fever 89-73 in their series opener. Meanwhile, Collier dropped 18 points with nine rebounds as the Lynx took Game 1 of their semifinals series against the Phoenix Mercury 82-69.
Advertisement
Although the Aces are still favored to win their series, the Lynx are two wins away from returning to the Finals and closer to that greater goal of winning the WNBA title.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Sep 22, 2025, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
