WNBA 2025 MVP race: Reese debuts, Wilson, Thomas inch closer to Collier

Napheesa Collier may not waltz her way to the 2025 WNBA MVP award. If she’s going to have stretches where she shoots 0-for-14 from 3 like she did from July 6 to 10, other players are going to have a chance. Collier is no longer on pace for a 50/40/90 season, and the next two players from MVP ladder 1.0 have been stepping up in big ways for their teams.

Let’s take a look at the top three of the MVP race, which hasn’t changed from my first ladder, as well as some interesting movement elsewhere on the list.

1. Napheesa Collier, Minnesota Lynx

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 39.2 (2nd in league); Games: 21; FG/3PT/FT: 51.7/34.2/94.6; TOV: 2.3 (Maintained same spot from previous rankings.)

Collier has lost her lead in combined stats to Wilson, but still gets the edge because of efficiency. While Wilson previously needed drastic improvement in efficiency to compete for the No. 1 spot, she’s closed the gap considerably in field goal percentage from down 8.2 percentage points to down 3.5. Most of that has been Wilson’s improvement (up 3.9) as opposed to Collier’s regression (down 0.8).

Collier gets a lot of credit for having an edge of even 3.5 percentage points because Wilson should have a better field goal percentage. Her style of play features more shots taken closer to the basket, while Collier is certainly taking more shots from beyond the arc. Collier has the far more impressive field goal percentage considering her style, less turnovers when she should have more (also because of style) and a far better free throw percentage. That’s enough to keep her as my MVP frontrunner—but it’s getting closer.

2. A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas Aces

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 40.3 (1st); Games: 18; FG/3PT/FT: 48.2/23.1/82.4; TOV: 2.4 (Maintained same spot from previous rankings.)

Yes, it’s getting closer. Wilson is coming off putting up back-to-back 30-point double-doubles with 37 points and 10 rebounds on Wednesday and 34 and 16 last Saturday.

These performances constituted a grand comeback from a wrist sprain suffered on July 8 that kept her out of one game. It’s unlikely she would have remained at two points in that July 8 game had she been able to play in the second half, so her averages are actually skewed unfavorably, yet she still took the lead in combined stats.

Two points in a half is still pretty bad though, for Wilson of all people. Yes, she was struggling in that game, a key one against the defending champion New York Liberty that had our editor-in-chief Cat Ariail questioning if the Liberty/Aces rivalry was still alive; she was 0-for-3 from the field. But that has been her only dud performance of the whole season. She has scored at least 15 points in every other game. To reiterate, what Michael Voepel wrote, she’s “embracing leading (the Aces) through (their struggles).” Well, the Aces were able to close the first half of the season on a two-game winning streak (highlighted by Wilson’s two big performances) that brought them to .500 and into the playoff picture.

3. Alyssa Thomas, Phoenix Mercury

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 38.7 (3rd); Games: 17; FG/3PT/FT: 51.7/0/69; TOV: 3.4 (Maintained same spot from previous rankings.)

Since the last ladder, Thomas has three games with nine-plus assists (15, 11 and nine), and in the one game where she didn’t accomplish that, she had a career-high 29 points. Her assist average is up to 9.5. Could she really achieve the improbable of averaging 10 on the season to match only Courtney Vandersloot in 2020?! I wouldn’t have been surprised if, after the last four games, her assist average had fallen, but she continues to maintain it and lead the league in that category despite Caitlin Clark returning from injury briefly to battle her in the race.

And with the help of the 29-point game, Thomas’ scoring average is up to nearly-a-career-best 15.2. Plus, she has been flirting with a top-five field goal percentage, as her current 51.7 mark is a career-best. As a Maryland Terrapin Thomas fan, I wish the numbers bore out even better so that I could put her first or second. But, with her combined stat score rising a full point, she’s on the right track!

4. Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 35.3 (5th); Games: 21; FG/3PT/FT: 47.5/20.6/82.1; TOV: 2.1 (Up three spots from previous rankings.)

I am showing Stewie some love here after putting her seventh last time. She had a bit of a dud in her first game after ladder 1.0, with just eight points, but has put up three good stat lines since. Over those three contests, she averaged 19 points, 9.3 boards, 5.3 assists, two steals and 2.3 blocks. Those rebounding, distributing and “stock” (steals plus blocks) numbers are all well above her overall season averages. To close out the first half of the season, she recorded just her fourth and fifth double-digit rebounding efforts and first back-to-back.

I don’t think I’m the only one ignoring her a little too much. She has become a quiet fourth-best player in the league after being the face of the league. She has finished top three in MVP voting six years in a row. Can she make it seven?

5. Allisha Gray, Atlanta Dream

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 31.4 (12th); Games: 22; FG/3PT/FT: 43.8/38.1/81.4; TOV: 1.7 (Maintained same spot from previous rankings.)

I struggled to put Gray this high again. Part of me would have much rather put Angel Reese here or maybe someone else with a little bit higher combined stat score. As you can see, Gray is 12th in the league in that department, yet is fifth on this ladder. Her score dropped a full point, which is why it felt odd keeping her here. Her overall, 3-point and free throw shooting percentages are down as well, but they’re still very good. I didn’t penalize her for dropping below that magic 40 percent number from 3.

She’s still the only guard in the running for the MVP who has good efficiency across all three shooting categories and makes over 1.5 threes per game. And that turnover average is the lowest of any guard in the running.

6. Paige Bueckers, Dallas Wings

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 33.2 (9th); Games: 18; FG/3PT/FT: 44.9/32.8/84.4; TOV: 2.4 (Maintained same spot from previous rankings.)

Bueckers has scored in double figures in every game of her WNBA career. In her first game after the last ladder, she had one of her lowest scoring outputs with 11 points, but got hit in the head in that game and played a season-low 24 minutes. After that, she rattled off performances of 17, 21 and 20 points, which is consistent with her season average of 18.4. Dallas’ perceived best player entering the season, Arike Ogunbowale is falling farther and farther behind Bueckers’ shadow. Ogunbowale notably scored just two points on 0-for-10 shooting from the field last Sunday, and Bueckers did nothing but offer comforting words to her teammate after the game:

The fact that Bueckers went out of her way to lift up a vet, who is supposed to be lifting her up, after a game where most players would have had nothing positive to say about said vet, says A LOT. It says a lot about class and wanting to build a championship culture where people don’t lash out at each other for making mistakes. Talk about valuable.

Ogunbowale is on track to miss out on MVP voting points for the first time in her career, while Bueckers has become the clear-cut best player on the Wings, and even a top-six player in the entire league.

7. Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 36.8 (4th); Games: 13; FG/3PT/FT: 36.7/27.9/82; TOV: 5.1 (Down three spots from previous rankings.)

First, I want to wish Clark a speedy recovery from her lingering groin injury. She’ll be missed at the All-Star Game and we hope to see her back soon.

Perhaps Clark’s recent struggles have been because of that groin injury. She’s shooting 23.1 percent from 3 since the last ladder and has failed to score more than 14 points in a game, averaging 12.5. I expected her to be averaging mid-20s year in and year out sooner rather than later, but right now (and, again, she may not be 100 percent), she is racking up the assists but not so much the points. Her 8.8 helpers per game since the last ladder are phenomenal, though not as good as Thomas’ 10.

The real reason Clark sinks this low is because of games played. In the NBA, players must play in roughly 79 percent of a season’s games (65 of 82) in order to be eligible for major awards. If Clark plays in every remaining Fever game, she will have played in 77.3 percent of their contests. It’s time to start thinking about disqualifying Clark for lack of games played, especially when there are so many other worthy candidates.

8. Kelsey Plum, Los Angeles Sparks

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 33.5 (7th); Games: 21; FG/3PT/FT: 39.7/35.8/91.5; TOV: 3.3 (Up one spot from previous rankings.)

Plum has been on fire from beyond the arc since that last ladder, shooting 52 percent with 13 makes across four games. Her now-much-more-respectable 35.8 percent clip from downtown is a big deal; she was at 32.5 percent at the time of the last ladder. And she hasn’t missed a free throw in 17 attempts over that same span. While her overall stat score is unchanged from last time, she is one of only three players averaging over 20 points per game on the season (20.1). The other two are Collier (23.2) and Wilson (22.3).

Plum is still capable of being far more efficient: Her career-highs in field goal percentage and 3-point percentage are 47.5 and 43.9, respectively. Even when she was attempting more 3s per game than she is now, she was able to shoot 46 percent from the field and 42 percent from deep. So there’s room for improvement. Maybe she can move up this list.

9. Sabrina Ionescu, New York Liberty

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 33.3 (8th); Games: 20; FG/3PT/FT: 37.9/31.1/93.5; TOV: 2.6 (Previously unranked.)

It was difficult to determine who deserved to make the ladder, and where they should rank, because the guards with the best stat scores (Clark, Plum and Ionescu) are all struggling with efficiency, while the efficient ones (Gray, Skylar Diggins and Courtney Williams) all have lower stat scores. But with the stat scores of Diggins and Aliyah Boston (top-10 candidates from ladder 1.0) falling, it was time to put Ionescu on this list.

Ionescu is a career 40.1 percent shooter from the field, compared to Plum’s 42.8 percent clip, but did shoot 44.8 percent from 3 in 2023 with a WNBA-record 128 makes. So, she too has room for improvement.

In her first two games after the last ladder, Ionescu put up Oregon Duck-Sabrina-like stat lines of 22 points, nine rebounds, six assists and two steals followed by 28 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and two steals. Save for the three games she played in 2020 before suffering a severe ankle sprain, her assist average is the lowest of her career at one full assist lower than her career high. Meanwhile, her rebounding average is 2.6 below her career high and just 0.1 above her career-low. If we can start to see the Sabrina who had 26 college triple-doubles, her MVP candidacy will see brighter days. She has only had four in the WNBA and none since 2023.

10. Angel Reese, Chicago Sky

Five main stats combined (assists count x1.5): 34.4 (6th); Games: 21; FG/3PT/FT: 44.6/21.1/77.9; TOV: 3.8 (Previously unranked.)

One player who does have a triple-double this season is Angel Reese. Now, why did I consider putting her as high as fifth yet slotted her at 10th?

Total stat score tend to favor frontcourt players because of rebounds. Only three times in 28 years has the WNBA MVP Award gone to a true guard (twice to Cynthia Cooper and once to Diana Taurasi). The last time it went to someone guard-like was when Elena Delle Donne won in 2019 and 2015, but she’s 6-foot-5 and got over eight rebounds per game in both of those seasons. So, you really have to go back to Maya Moore (6-foot-0) in 2014. Collier, who is 6-foot-1 and plays like a wing like Moore, could change that. But she’s still not a true guard.

That context resulted in Gray, Bueckers, Clark, Plum and Ionescu ranking above Reese, despite lower stat scores. When it comes to guards, rebounding just isn’t going to be as big a part of their game, and that’s okay. They are the best players at their position and they do their job.

With that being said, it feels wrong to have Reese at No. 10. She has shown so much improvement since early in the season. She nearly made the first MVP ladder, but her efficiency was still too low. Well, she’s shot 55.6 percent from the field since then, to go along with averages of 18.8 points, 12.8 boards and 3.6 assists. She’s sixth in the league in stat score, and, one could argue, very deserving of being higher on this list. Let’s get some positive vibes going around Angel, who gets criticized far too much!