Will the WNBA Give Us an A’ja-vs-Phee MVP Referendum?

One of my favorite things in sports is the instant award-referendum in a playoff series: One player, snubbed for an honor in favor of a rival, gets to face that rival and get a measure of revenge. And have we got a great opportunity for that in the WNBA, depending on how things shake out this weekend.

Right now, the two best-of-five semifinal series — between the Minnesota Lynx and Phoenix Mercury, and the Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever — are each knotted up at 1 win apiece, with both Game 3s tonight and the Game 4s on Sunday. My WNBA Elo forecast model considers the Lynx (63 percent) and Aces (54 percent) favorites, with a 34 percent chance of colliding in the Finals. Polymarket is even more enthusiastic, assigning a 41 percent chance of a Lynx-Aces Finals:

(Note: Click here to check out all of Polymarket’s WNBA markets.)

That matchup would bring about a battle between newly-crowned MVP A’ja Wilson — the league’s first four-time winner — and back-to-back MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier — who seemed so certain to get the award earlier in the season as chants of “MVPhee” filled the Target Center. As Wilson’s candidacy was regaining steam before the end of the regular season, I warned that she could take the wind out of the Collier-for-MVP campaign’s sails — particularly considering that Wilson had one of the most dominant seasons of all-time — but it was still tough to watch as Collier finished behind Wilson in the voting yet again, in what was supposed to be her year.

But then again, that just makes a potential Finals matchup between the two even juicier. Even if we all know that team results aren’t truly reflective of individual play (and vice-versa), the outcome of said series would cement one narrative or the other — either to vindicate Wilson’s come-from-behind MVP bid, or “prove” that the voters should have sided with MVPhee instead.

Certainly, the expectation has been building all season for that showdown. But there’s just one small detail standing in the way: the underdog Mercury and Fever actually have stolen home-court advantage in both semifinal series.

Both favorites dropped an early game at home, flipping the pressure onto them. With the next two contests on the road, the Lynx and Aces both must win at least one away game to avoid recording a third, season-ending loss.

And historically, home-court has proven important in the WNBA playoffs. All-time, home teams had won 63.7 percent of all playoff games going into the 2025 postseason, and teams who played Game 1 at home in a best-of-five series ended up advancing 71.4 percent of the time. But in the subset of those series where the team with home-court advantage split the opening pair of games, their rate of advancing fell to just 50 percent.

That’s bad news for the Minnesota-Las Vegas MVP Referendum Bowl as our Finals matchup.

However, the favorites can take solace in the fact that the very thing which put them in this spot — home losses — can now rescue them, too. Home teams in these playoffs have won just 60 percent of all games, below the historical average — including the Fever stunning the favored Dream in the first-round clincher, the Mercury and Liberty reverse-splitting the first two games of their series with road winners, and now more road wins to start the semifinals.

So there’s no doubt that the Lynx and Aces are made to survive under these circumstances. But as mentioned earlier, Las Vegas’ odds against the Caitlin Clark-less Fever remain somewhat in flux, thanks to the best efforts of Kelsey Mitchell, Odyssey Sims and Natasha Howard on the Indiana side, and with Wilson being held beneath her usual Game Score average (14.7 versus 21.2) in the semis so far.

Meanwhile, for the Lynx, the factor standing in their way perhaps every bit as much as the home-court flip toward Phoenix is the one player with maybe as much of a star-crossed MVP history as Collier: Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas. While Collier, too, has been held beneath her usual Game Score (14.6 versus 19.8) in the semis so far, Thomas has been the most productive player of the second round by that measure, outpacing both players who finished in front of her in the MVP voting:

Again, the Lynx remain solid favorites regardless, and the Aces have a slim edge with their ability to play the best-player-in-the-series card in Wilson whenever they need to. (Witness her monster 38-point game to put away the Storm in Round 1’s deciding contest.) But this weekend will prove pivotal in determining which direction the playoffs go from here.

Either we get the big superstar-on-superstar matchup in the Finals — Wilson versus Collier, a true instant MVP referendum — or we get a chaotic one: Thomas’ redemption journey with the Mercury, perhaps winning the title she couldn’t ever grab in 8 seasons with Connecticut, or the Clark-less Fever in a remarkable Cinderella run.

Both paths are compelling. But only one would settle the MVP debate on the biggest stage, once and for all.

Filed under: WNBA