{"id":179532,"date":"2025-08-27T10:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179532\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T10:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:58:10","slug":"sophie-cunningham-names-childhood-rival-as-wnbas-best-player-in-glowing-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179532\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham Names Childhood Rival as WNBA\u2019s Best Player in Glowing Tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every setback is an opportunity. And for Sophie Cunningham<\/strong>, that opportunity was: Podcasting. After an MCL tear ruled her out for the rest of the season, Sophie Cunningham swiftly transitioned from clutch shots to hot takes. And just like her shot-up three-pointers, her comments about a WNBA star on a podcast yesterday have raised a lot of eyebrows. The person in question? Napheesa Collier.<\/p>\n

Appearing on the Show Me Something pod, Sophie Cunningham made a revelation about an on-court childhood rival, who\u2019s now one of the faces of the WNBA. \u201cActually, Oh! Napheesa Collier- she was, lived in Jeff City for a little bit, and then she moved to St. Louis,\u201d Cunningham confessed. \u201cSo, I have played against her. Since like, sixth-seventh grade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Co-host West Wilson was clearly surprised by this piece of news. Sophie further revealed, \u201cShe went to Incarnate Word. Yeah, so she spent a year at Jeff City, I think. Her freshman year, and then she moved to St. Louis. For her to be part of Incarnate Word, which is like a stacked basketball team,\u201d Cunningham added. She even made a bold claim about the Lynx superstar. \u201cBut Napheesa\u2019s good. She\u2019s probably the best player in our league. She is a hell of a player. Yeah, like has everything in her bag.\u201d That ought to raise more than a few eyebrows.<\/p>\n

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via Imago<\/p>\n

Even Napheesa Collier<\/strong> has attested to playing against Cunningham. Speaking with Sue Bird on the latter\u2019s podcast on August 22, Collier reminisced about their clashes during their high-school days. \u201cI\u2019ve played against Sophie since I was in 8th grade,\u201d Collier confessed, before addressing, \u201cShe is the same. Yeah,\u201d in terms of gameplay.<\/p>\n

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Cunningham also praised the Lynx<\/a>, calling them a \u2018hot team\u2019\u00a0and also praised, at times ostracized, Cheryl Reeve for the way she\u2019s made the Lynx into a winning machine. \u201cThey\u2019re a hot team right now, and they\u2019re doing so good,\u201d Sophie said. \u201cBut to me, Minnesota\u2019s offense is\u2026 I know people have opinions about Cheryl (Reeve), who\u2019s their head coach, but dude, she is a genius when it comes to freaking being a head coach.\u201d Emphasising the Lynx as one of the strongest teams in the league, Cunningham appreciated HC Cheryl Reeve and her efforts.<\/p>\n

And leading this Lynx charge from the front is Napheesa Collier, who has emerged as one of the favourites for the MVP.<\/p>\n

Napheesa Collier emerges as an MVP candidate<\/p>\n

The reigning DPOY is in the form of her life, averaging a league-high 23.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 3.4 assists this season. The result? Minnesota is by far the best team in the league, sitting comfortably at first place, and is the favorite to go all the way in the postseason.<\/p>\n

As the buzz around the MVP conversations gains momentum, it\u2019s not just fans who see Collier as the favourite for the crown<\/a>. Almost 67% of GMs also predicted that Collier will be the front-runner for the award. And she has by far lived up to those expectations.<\/p>\n

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Leading the MVP race with -325, per BetMGM, Napheesa Collier is closely followed by the reigning MVP, A\u2019ja Wilson.<\/strong> Wilson stands with +450 votes under her belt, partly due to her 30\/20 feat and the LV Aces\u2019 remarkable 11-game winning streak. The only blot against Collier is that she\u2019s missed nearly 20% of games this season, which may hamper her quest for the MVP crown.<\/a><\/p>\n

Who do you think should be the MVP: Napheesa Collier or A\u2019ja Wilson? Or is it someone else? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every setback is an opportunity. And for Sophie Cunningham, that opportunity was: Podcasting. After an MCL tear ruled…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":179533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-179532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115100378962425235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}