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 3
Tier 4: Perennial All-WNBA
25. Seimone Augustus (2006-2020)
24. Deanna Nolan (2001-2009)
23. Katie Smith (1999-2013)
22. Angel McCoughtry (2009-2020)
21. Napheesa Collier (2019-Current)
20. Lindsay Whalen (2004-2018)
19. Sue Bird (2002-2022)
18. Tina Thompson (1997-2013)
Tier 4 features eight players who played a combined 107 seasons and made 46 All-WNBA teams but never won an MVP.
Tina Thompson leads the group with nine All-WNBA nods (four first-team) and was the league’s all-time scoring leader (7,488 points) until 2017. She was named an All-Star in her 17th and final season. Despite all her accolades, she ranks just 31st with 4.4 adjusted win shares per season – far behind Comets teammates Cynthia Cooper (11.8, 1st) and Sheryl Swoopes (5.6, 12th).
https://twitter.com/WNBA/status/1904945557031809381
Sue Bird and Lindsay Whalen each won four championships as starting point guards but were never MVPs or Finals MVPs.
Bird, the all-time assist leader (3,234), made eight All-WNBA teams (five first-team). She finished third in MVP voting in 2008 and ranks 7th in adjusted win shares (aWS). Whalen, 12th in aWS and fifth in career assists, was All-WNBA five times. She finished second in MVP voting in 2008 – just ahead of Bird. Bird won titles in Seattle alongside legends Lauren Jackson and Breanna Stewart; Whalen won hers in Minnesota with Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus, and Sylvia Fowles – all members of the WNBA25.
Augustus, the 2011 Finals MVP and a six-time All-WNBA selection (one first-team), carried the pre-dynasty Lynx by finishing top five in scoring each of her first three seasons. She ranks 14th in career points.
Just behind her at 17th is Angel McCoughtry, a two-time scoring champion and six-time All-WNBA honoree (two first-team) who spent most of her career in Atlanta. McCoughtry was also a dominant defender – leading the league in steals twice and earning seven All-Defensive selections (six first-team). Her 2.0 steals-per-game rank third all-time. After appearing in just one game for Atlanta in 2019, she started 30 games for Las Vegas in 2020 en route to her lone championship.
Deanna Nolan and Katie Smith led the Detroit Shock to titles in 2006 and 2008. Nolan, who also won a championship in Detroit in 2003, was the 2006 Finals MVP and five-time All-WNBA guard. She and Smith were elite defenders before the league tracked All-Defense selections.
Smith, once a tremendous scorer in Minnesota (23.1 ppg in 2001), adapted to a complementary role in Detroit. A four-time All-WNBA pick, she ranks third in career threes. After Detroit relocated to Tulsa in 2009, Nolan left the WNBA at age 29 while Smith played four more seasons with three different teams.
https://twitter.com/TheCommitteeSG/status/1837187349199081506
Napheesa Collier is the only active player in Tier 4 and is already pushing for Tier 3 status. In six seasons, she has three top-five MVP finishes, including second last year when she also won Defensive Player of the Year. Her 1.0 MVP shares already rank top 25 all-time – ahead of Augustus, Nolan, Smith, and just behind McCoughtry, Whalen, Thompson, and Bird. She has three All-WNBA selections (two first-team) and three All-Defensive nods.
https://twitter.com/WNBA/status/1859297916042740184
Remarkably, Cheryl Reeve has coached seven of the eight Tier 4 players. She was an assistant in Detroit (2006–09) with Nolan and Smith. Reeve has been head coach at Minnesota since 2010, coaching Augustus, Whalen, McCoughtry (briefly in 2022), and Collier. She also coached Bird as an assistant on Team USA at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. Whalen joined Reeve’s coaching staff this season, replacing Smith, who left for Ohio State after five years as an assistant.
https://twitter.com/minnesotalynx/status/1840415388049293810
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