With the Las Vegas Aces torching the Minnesota Lynx, A\u2019ja Wilson has emerged as the frontrunner in the WNBA MVP debate. Last night\u2019s match was always going to have a significant bearing on the eventual decision, especially since both Wilson and Napheesa Collier have gone toe-to-toe in terms of performances.<\/p>\n
In last night\u2019s performance, Wilson scored 31 points by shooting 11 of 15, achieving an 80% from the field. Not only that, she also limited the damage Collier is capable of by stopping her to just 12 points from 5 of 13 from the field. In fact, Wilson\u2019s first bucket of the night saw Collier off her foot and embracing the court, which does no favors for her MVP candidature.<\/p>\n
Naturally, WNBA legend Sue Bird weighed in on the MVP debate on her podcast earlier today, where she praised Wilson<\/strong> <\/a>for her numbers, a 13-match win streak, and how she has led her team to 2nd on the table. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to deny that,\u201d Bird admitted.<\/p>\n That said, she does have a bit of sympathy for Collier. \u201cWith Phee, there\u2019s the whole injury, miss 10 games, that voters have to figure out how they are going to weigh,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a conversation to be had about Wilson\u2019s performance before the last 6 weeks of the league, where her MVP candidature wasn\u2019t even a point of discussion. Bird asserted that she continues to go back and forth on this.<\/p>\n \u201cThe WNBA season is short enough for you to take into account the whole season. But I think what happens at times, and I don\u2019t mean this specific to this year, truly. It happens to be playing out this way, but I have seen it time and time again,\u201d Bird continued.<\/p>\n \u201cA player starts out hot, and the conversation around them starts brewing. And then a player, kind of like a late bloomer \u2026 it never reaches the hype that the player who had a hot start got. It\u2019s just really hard to break through. This might be one of the few times, if A\u2019ja wins MVP, where I have seen someone break through late,\u201d she noted<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Of course, there\u2019s a very good chance that if Collier hadn\u2019t gotten injured and missed out on all those games in the middle of the season, Wilson might have never had a chance to catch up, at least in matters of being a top MVP contender.<\/p>\n What her absence also does is allow this perception to form that the Lynx are just this unstoppable unit, with or without her, which simply is not the case. Bird believes it will all come down to where their respective teams are ahead of the playoffs.<\/p>\n