With four games remaining in the 2024 WNBA regular season, the Minnesota Lynx (27-9 remain in second place, and can sew up a top-two finish in the coming days. Then it’s onto the postseason, when the Lynx will compete for their first WNBA championship since 2017.
In the meantime, voting will be underway for the 2024 WNBA regular-season awards, such as Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year and Coach of the Year. As one of the best teams in the league, the Lynx currently have candidates for several of these awards. Let’s run through which Lynx could be honored for their outstanding regular-season performances.
Napheesa Collier
At this point, it would probably be easier to list the awards Collier isn’t a candidate for. Minnesota’s prized forward has taken yet another step in her ascent to full-fledged superstardom, and her name will surely be written often up and down award ballots when the time comes.
Statistically, Collier has one of the most impressive resumes of any player in the WNBA. She ranks fifth in the league in scoring (20.4 points per game) and third in rebounding (9.8 rebounds per game) while also chipping in a career-high 3.5 assists. And though she’s the focal point of Minnesota’s offense, Collier remains one of the WNBA’s most efficient scorers; among WNBA players who attempt at least 15 field goal attempts per game, she ranks fourth in true shooting percentage at 56.1 percent (Across the Timeline).
Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson is having a historically good season (27.3 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game, along with a league-record 956 total points scored and counting), so it would be a surprise if Collier wins MVP honors. She is, however, essentially a lock for her second consecutive All-WNBA First Team honor—and that probably won’t be all, either.
Collier has long been regarded as one of the few players in the WNBA that play at a star level on both ends of the floor, and on a Lynx team that has been stout defensively all season long, her efforts have been more recognizable than ever. It’s typical that the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award goes to a player on a top defensive team; as of September 12, Minnesota has the second-best defensive rating in the WNBA (94.9 points allowed per 100 possessions), so it’s likely that Collier and her 1.9 steals and 1.3 blocks per game will get some shine. Her ability to defend everywhere on the court has been her calling card since she was a rookie, and she’s been named to the WNBA All-Defense Team twice in her career. A third honor in 2024 seems inevitable.
Cheryl Reeve
Given that there are only 12 head coaches in the WNBA, the field for Coach of the Year is never a deep one. The winner is usually decided by some combination of team performance relative to expectations and general levels excellence, and based on how the Lynx have played in 2024, Reeve has a solid case to win Coach of the Year for the fourth time in her career.
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Photo by David Berding/Getty Images
It goes without saying that the Lynx have played excellent basketball, and the ways in which they’ve excelled point towards being a well-coached team. They’re unselfish (76.7 percent assist rate; first in the WNBA), they play terrific defense and they stack up well against other top teams, having beaten Las Vegas and Seattle three times and New York once.
It should also be mentioned that Minnesota was not widely expected to be among those teams before the season began. The Lynx were ranked from No. 6 to No. 9 in various preseason power ranking polls, which, in hindsight, are looking like fairly poor predictions. Award voters deciding who to pick for Coach of the Year will likely consider this heavily when weighing Reeve’s case against those of coaches of other top WNBA teams, such as New York’s Sandy Brondello and Connecticut’s Stephanie White.
Alanna Smith
It takes more than one player to make a team’s defense, and in Minnesota’s case, the defensive playmaking ability among the roster’s frontcourt players is just one reason why the Lynx are so good on that end of the court.
While Collier is having a tremendous defensive season and will likely be rewarded for that, Smith is another Lynx player who could be honored on this season’s All-Defense Team. As shown by Swish Appeal’s Josh Felton in his recent video analyzing Minnesota’s superb defense, Smith has been one of the WNBA’s top shot-blockers, swatting 1.5 shots per game and ranking No. 7 in the league in blocked shot rate (4.9 percent; Her Hoop Stats). In total, she’s averaging 2.8 combined defensive stats (steals plus blocks, or “stocks”) per game.
Alone, these numbers wouldn’t make Smith a shoo-in for an All-Defense honor, but taken within the context of Minnesota’s defense as a team, it’s very possible that she’ll be the second Lynx represented. Smith could even garner a few votes for All-WNBA, depending on how much the voters weigh defense, because she’s no slouch offensively either; she’s currently averaging career highs in scoring (10.4 points) and assists (3.1), while shooting 42.9 percent on 3-pointers.