Perhaps more than any season in recent memory, the WNBA’s MVP race is incredibly tight. A clear-cut, obvious winner has not emerged, partly because the standings have been chaotic. Outside of the Minnesota Lynx, no team has been dominant throughout the season, and teams like the Aces and Liberty have found themselves all over the standings. Injuries have also played a factor, as some of the league’s best players, like season-long frontrunner Napheesa Collier, have had to miss time.
With so many players operating at a high level, several players who are deserving of the award won’t end up winning it. No one will have been “robbed” or “screwed” over by the voters. There are just too many stars playing incredible basketball this season.
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With two weeks left in the regular season, here’s a closer look at who might be holding up the MVP trophy in a few weeks:
Napheesa Collier, Minnesota Lynx
Early on in the season, Collier emerged as the favorite to win the MVP. Not only was she dominant, but her Minnesota Lynx team zipped to the top of the league’s standings and has not relinquished that spot. Collier leads the league in scoring (23.9 points per game) and field goals made (8.7 per game). She’s had six games where she’s scored 30 points or more, including in her first game back from injury on Sunday.
But as Yahoo Sports’ Cassandra Negley pointed out, Collier has missed tons of playing time with an ankle injury, which could affect her candidacy. She was injured on August 2 in a Minnesota win over Las Vegas. Collier missed seven games, and the team went 5-2 without her. Her teammates stepped up while she was out, with Courtney Williams even joking about how many shots she had to take without Collier.
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“I told [Collier] before the game, I’m sick of taking 18, 20 shots. I’m ready to be back to 10 or 12. So it feels good to have Phee back,” Williams said on Sunday after her team’s win over the Fever.
Considering how well the Lynx continued to play without Collier on the court, does that discount her MVP campaign? Or does it show how she was able to lead from the sidelines? MVP voters will need to consider all angles.
Allisha Gray, Atlanta Dream
For the last two seasons, the Atlanta Dream made it to the playoffs but haven’t won a postseason game. They looked like a team on the cusp, but not quite ready to compete with the league’s elite. Now? They are among the elite and look like a team that could compete for a title.
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Gray’s elevated play is a big reason why Atlanta is flourishing. She has taken advantage of her team upgrading their frontcourt and has become the team’s go-to player on offense. Gray is scoring 18.8 points per game (seventh in the league) on a team that has five players averaging double-digit points per game.
“She’s one of the best players in the league, and I think if you’re top four or five player in the league, you should be in that [MVP] conversation,” Dream coach Karl Smesko said earlier this season. “Obviously, there’s just some tremendous talent in the league. But you know, she’s been great for us all year, both sides of the ball. She’s been a very efficient scorer, a very willing passer. She competes on the defensive end. She is a great rebounder for a guard, so everything that you could want in a player, she’s been this year.”
The knock on Gray, however, is that she doesn’t lead stat categories like the other contenders mentioned here. Aside from being seventh in points per game and fifth in total points, she doesn’t make the top 10 in any of the other major categories. What she brings to her team is valuable without a doubt, but it is tougher to define.
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Alyssa Thomas, Phoenix Mercury
After 11 seasons in Connecticut, Alyssa Thomas is having another blistering season in her first year in Phoenix. She’s the league leader in both triple-doubles (7) and double-doubles (20, tied with Angel Reese). But no statistic says what kind of player Thomas is quite like this one: She’s a forward who leads the league in assists.
Considering she’s third in the league in rebounds per game (9.0, behind Reese and A’ja Wilson), Thomas’ statistics show what a special facilitator she is. Outside of Thomas, the league’s assists leader has always been a guard. But Thomas can figure out how to help her teammates score in ways opponents don’t always know how to defend.
While Phoenix is 23-14 and in fourth place in the league, Thomas isn’t a flashy player and she won’t ever campaign for herself. So her coach realized the most effective thing the Mercury could do to help her MVP case: win.
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“We need to keep winning. For her to win the MVP, you’ve got to be one of the better teams in this league,” Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts said. “I think we’ve proven that…AT’s not going to talk about herself in that conversation, but she just brings so much to our group each and every night.”
Thomas’ play on the court is never going to keep her from raising the MVP trophy. But because she is quiet off the court, it can be easier for voters to look past her.
A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas Aces
After the Aces’ win over the Chicago Sky on Monday, Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon laid out the case for Wilson to win her fourth MVP award. Hammon said Wilson is the most dominant player in the league.
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“She’ll do something almost every game where it’s like, ‘That was nasty!’” Hammon said. “Some of her blocks are so physically dominant that I equate it to a posterized dunk in the men’s game. It just gets people on their feet. How demonstrative some of her blocks are. She can guard one through five. She’s going to be the greatest player to ever play this game when it’s all said and done. Don’t miss it. She’s here. She’s in her prime, and she’s killing it. Period.”
Not to mention Wilson has been a catalyst in the Aces’ remarkable turnaround late this season.
The case against Wilson isn’t really a reasonable one in the world of competitive professional sports — it’s voter fatigue. Wilson won the MVP in 2020, 2022 and unanimously in 2024. She was also named the Defensive Player of the Year in 2022 and 2023, and won the WNBA Finals MVP in 2023 after leading her team to a second consecutive title. If she’s still at the top of the game, who cares that she already has a full trophy case?
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The same thing happened in the 1990s when Michael Jordan was dominating the NBA. Charles Barkley won the MVP in 1993 and Karl Malone won it in 1997. Jordan still led the league in scoring those seasons, and was just as dominant and efficient as he had been in 1991, 1992, 1996 and 1998, the years he did win the award. He didn’t deserve to win the MVP less, but voters spread the wealth to Barkley and Malone.
Not only did Jordan win titles in 1993 and 1997, but he also won the NBA Finals MVPs those years. He was famously motivated by slights, and if Wilson were not to win MVP this year, she could easily follow in MJ’s footsteps and take it personally.
