Now in its 29th season, the WNBA has seen 833 players take the court since its debut in 1997. Distilling nearly three decades of talent into a top 25 list means identifying the top 3% of players in league history — the elite of the elite.
The categories used to evaluate players include Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards and MVP shares, Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) and DPOY shares, Finals appearances, championships, Finals MVPs, statistical league rankings, adjusted win shares (taking into account the changes in the number of regular season games throughout the course of the WNBA), All-WNBA selections, and All-Defensive honors (Note: All-Defense wasn’t introduced in the WNBA until the 2005 season).
A total of 117 players have received MVP votes, but only 16 have actually won the award. All 16 made the WNBA25. Fifteen of the 16 MVPs have won at least one WNBA championship, and 12 also won a Finals MVP.
The subjectivity comes when digging a little deeper. Take Hall of Famer Tina Thompson. She won four titles and made eight All-WNBA teams, yet never claimed a league MVP – even though she received MVP votes in 13 of her 17 seasons. Her Houston Comets teammate Cynthia Cooper won two MVPs and four Finals MVPs. Another Comet teammate, Sheryl Swoopes, won three MVPs and three DPOYs.
As great as Thompson was, she was the third-best player during the Comets’ four-peat from 1997 to 2000. Therefore, that places her in a lower tier than both Cooper and Swoopes.
Limiting the list to 25 means some impactful players missed the cut. Current players Skylar Diggins-Smith and Alyssa Thomas just missed. Becky Hammon, Katie Douglas, and Teresa Weatherspoon are players from the first half of the WNBA’s inception who also fell short of the WNBA25.
*All stats above were manually calculated*
Click the following to view the three other tiers: Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 4
WNBA Top 25 Tier 3: MVP-Caliber Stars
17. Jonquel Jones (2016-Current)
16. Brittney Griner (2013-Current)
15. Tina Charles (2010-Current)
14. Elena Delle Donne (2013-2023)
13. Nneka Ogwumike (2012-Current)
12. Yolanda Griffith (1999-2008)
11. Sylvia Fowles (2008-2022)
Tier 3 features seven dominant bigs, all but one of whom have won league MVP. Four are still active, though three are nearing the end of their careers.
Jonquel Jones is the lone Tier 3 player still in her prime, with a Hall of Fame résumé already taking shape. After a quiet rookie season in Connecticut, she won Most Improved Player in 2017, Sixth Player of the Year in 2018, and league MVP in 2021. A dominant force on both ends, she’s led the league in rebounds three times and blocks once. She’s earned five All-WNBA selections (one first-team) and four All-Defensive honors.
Traded to New York in 2023, Jones adapted to a star-studded lineup alongside Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu. She sacrificed individual stats but helped the Liberty reach back-to-back Finals. Jones and the Liberty won their first title in 2024, and Jones was named Finals MVP. Her 61.7% true shooting percentage ranks second all-time, and she sits tenth in aWS per season. How high she climbs historically will be defined by the seasons still to come.
https://twitter.com/nyliberty/status/1882100755504734223
A few more strong seasons could elevate Jones past Brittney Griner on the all-time list. One of the league’s most dominant defenders, the 6-foot-9 Griner was the Defensive Player of the Year and an All-WNBA selection during Phoenix’s 2014 championship run. She finished fifth in MVP voting that season; teammate Diana Taurasi was second. Griner led the league in blocks eight times, earned seven All-Defensive honors, and won DPOY in both 2014 and 2015. Offensively, Griner peaked from 2017 to 2021, leading the league in scoring twice and averaging 20.6 points per game over that span.
A six-time All-WNBA pick (three first-team), Griner finished second in MVP voting twice – once to Elena Delle Donne in 2019 and again to Jones in 2021. Her 1.4 career MVP shares are the highest among players without a win. Since her detainment in Russia in 2022, she hasn’t returned to peak form. She is now working to revive her career in Atlanta after 11 seasons with the Mercury.
https://twitter.com/PhoenixMercury/status/1682420836836446209
Like Griner, Tina Charles and Nneka Ogwumike are nearing the end of standout careers.
Charles made All-WNBA in each of her first eight seasons and won MVP in 2012. A nine-time All-WNBA pick (five first-team) and four-time All-Defensive honoree, she led the league in scoring twice and rebounding four times. She’s now second all-time in scoring and first in rebounds, but has never reached the WNBA Finals.
Ogwumike, the 2016 MVP and a champion that same year, ranks higher than Charles in both total aWS (5th to Charles’s 23rd) and aWS per season (8th to Charles’s 39th). A seven-time All-WNBA and All-Defensive selection, Ogwumike is also top 10 all-time in both scoring and steals – rare territory for a power forward.
https://twitter.com/WNBA/status/1873731795809960107
Yolanda Griffith graduated from college four years before the WNBA began.
After a strong run overseas and in the American Basketball League, she joined the Sacramento Monarchs as a 29-year-old rookie. She promptly won MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and earned first-team All-WNBA honors. Though the league didn’t introduce All-Defensive teams until 2005, Griffith was later selected twice. Her size and athleticism made her dominant on both ends.
Between 1999 and 2006, she led the league in rebounding twice and steals twice. She powered the Monarchs to back-to-back Finals appearances, leading them to their only title in 2005 when she was named Finals MVP. Griffith ranks seventh all-time with 7.1 aWS per season – one full point ahead of Ogwumike in eighth.
Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles were briefly teammates in Chicago, but their similar career trajectories ultimately took different paths. Fowles, drafted second overall in 2008, was already a Defensive Player of the Year and All-WNBA force when the Sky selected Delle Donne second overall in 2013. That season, Delle Donne was Rookie of the Year and finished third in MVP voting, while Fowles earned her second DPOY. Injuries limited both in 2014, but they helped the Sky reach the Finals before falling to Griner’s Mercury.
In 2015, Fowles held out and forced a trade to Minnesota. She helped the Lynx win their third championship since 2011 and was named Finals MVP. Delle Donne led the league in scoring and captured her first MVP. The next two years saw Fowles dominate with back-to-back Finals appearances and a 2017 season where she swept MVP, Finals MVP, and a title – one of only six players ever to do so.
Delle Donne, meanwhile, forced a trade to Washington and led the Mystics to the semifinals, where Fowles’ Lynx swept them.
After Minnesota’s dynasty faded, Delle Donne’s Mystics rose. She earned First Team All-WNBA in 2018 and led the Mystics to their first Finals. In 2019, she won her second MVP and guided Washington to its first championship.
Delle Donne is one of eight players in WNBA history to win multiple MVPs. In 10 seasons, she earned five All-WNBA selections (four first-team) but never made an All-Defensive team. Statistically, she ranks 13th all-time in aWS per season (5.5), fourth in player efficiency rating (27.9), fifth in scoring average (19.5 PPG), and is the league’s all-time leader in free throw percentage at 93.7% on 1,190 attempts.
Fowles, in contrast, was a dominant two-way presence over 15 seasons. She made eight All-WNBA teams (three first-team), 11 All-Defensive teams (second only to Tamika Catchings), and won Defensive Player of the Year four times (Catchings won five). Fowles led the league in blocks twice and rebounds three times. She ranks fourth all-time in blocks (721), second in rebounds (4,006), and first in true shooting percentage (63.6%).
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