Napheesa Collier and the Lynx have been overlooked all year. Now, they’re in the WNBA Finals

BROOKLYN — Napheesa Collier doesn’t care too much about the national spotlight. In a year that began with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s rookie debuts, and was punctuated by A’ja Wilson’s unanimous MVP award, her excellence was sometimes put to the wayside.

But, Collier’s on-court excellence spoke for itself. She averaged 20.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 3.4 assists this season, leading the Minnesota Lynx to the league’s second-best record. She earned Defensive Player of the Year honors for the first-time in her career, a goal that head coach Cheryl Reeve had set for her ahead of the season.

Now, the MVP runner-up — who also doubles as the mother of a two-year old girl named Mila — has helped spearhead the Lynx’s run to the WNBA Finals.

What’s impressed her teammates and coaches most isn’t her two-way on-court excellence, nor her postseason scoring explosion (Collier is averaging 27.1 points per game this postseason — the most a WNBA player has averaged entering the Finals since Maya Moore in 2015).

What’s stood out, first and foremost, is her consistency as a leader. Regardless of what she’s going through on a personal level — as a mother, as a person — Collier always makes sure to show up for her teammates, exactly the same way each and every day.

“What you see from her today, whether she’s tired, whether Mila kept her up all night — whatever it is, she’s the same,” Reeve said. “When you look at her she gives you energy every day.”

“She’s just a model of consistency, and I don’t know if people understand that. If you think about it in your own lives, in your own line of work, there’s people that don’t come that way consistently, and how it can impact [the people around them].”

That poise, that consistency, has rubbed off on her Lynx teammates.

“When your best player is going to be all those things you have to follow,” Reeve said.

Courtney Williams has played with a myriad of stars in her 8-year WNBA career. But, she hasn’t seen shared a locker room with anyone quite like Collier. What’s stood out most to Williams is her humility.

“She’s just different, like the way she moves — you would think she was a role player, and that’s rare, because she’s a bonafide superstar, you know what I’m saying?” Williams told SB Nation. “She’s so humble, she’s so coachable, and like Cheryl said, she shows up every day the same way, and that’s hard to find.”

In turn, Williams and her teammates are comfortable accepting any feedback or criticism — comfortable being held accountable by the coaching staff and one another.

“She sets the tone for everybody, because it’s like, if your best player can be coachable, who are you to not be coachable?” Williams said. “You know what I’m saying?”

For Collier, it’s not quite as simple as everything always feeling perfect. But, she makes an effort to not let anything off the court interfere with her role as the leader of one of the most decorated franchises in the WNBA.

“Of course I have bad days — everybody does. But, I try to hide it from the team, come in and be professional, obviously, and be there for my team,” Collier told SB Nation. “It doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, if you’re having a bad day: you should show up and do your job, I think.”

This Finals run is extra unique because it features two former teammates and business partners facing off against one another. Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier shared the court at the University of Connecticut, and then opted to together launch Unrivaled Basketball League, a new 3x3 professional basketball league for players during the offseason.

Stewart remembers meeting Collier and perceiving her as a lengthy freshman who wasn’t quite sure what to do.

“It’s like when you get to school, you’re like, ‘Well, what am I doing? What’s the system? How does this work?’ To see her kind of go like that to where she is now – just the growth and the maturity – is something that never ceases to amaze me, because she was my freshman,” Stewart said.

Collier was drafted No. 6 by the Lynx in 2019, and was stellar from the jump, awarded Rookie of the Year in her first season. She’s been an All-Star every year she’s been in the league, and she’s won two Olympic gold medals.

Her coach wants to see her get more credit.

“I say this all the time: I think she’s one of the most marketable people in sports — forget WNBA — in sports,” Reeve said. “All that she is, all that she has been, a beautiful family — every way, she represents.”

“I know if I’m a fortune 500 company, I’d be all over her.”

Collier doesn’t play in as robust a media market as New York or Las Vegas. She’s not super active on social media, and she doesn’t often self-advocate — as is true for many of her teammates. Her and the the Lynx are used to being overlooked, and that was evidenced by ESPN’s preseason power rankings putting them 9th heading into the season.

After a Game 3 semifinals victory against the Connecticut Sun, Courtney Williams and Napheesa Collier were asked about whether there’s been a chip on their shoulders.

“The chip has been there. They had us 9th in the beginning of the season, so that chip never went away,” Williams said. “We don’t really care, we block out the noise. We know what we can do, we’ve been knowing what we can do.”

“It’s kind of nice at this point,” Collier said. “You keep underestimating us, and we keep doing what we’re doing. We come in and hit teams in the face because they have the same mindset. We proved who we are all season, and we have so much belief in ourselves. We know what we’re capable of, and that’s what we’re trying to go out and show every night. It doesn’t really matter what other people are saying or believing, it just matters what this core team is feeling, and we know we have something special here.”

In the WNBA Finals, the Minnesota Lynx will show what they’re capable on the brightest stage in basketball. And, at the same time, Collier gets the opportunity to show the world she’s as elite a player as they came.

Her head coach can’t wait.

“People always kind of go, ‘she’s good, but she’s not quite A’ja Wilson or Breanna Stewart.’ That’s what everybody thinks, right?” Reeve said. “But she’s coming. She’s working hard to change that narrative. She doesn’t really care what people think — I do.”