I just happen to be the one doing the Minnesota Lynx season preview—and I am very high on them.
They supposedly weren’t a great team on paper the past two years, and yet went a combined 64-20 in the regular season with two semifinals appearances and a Finals appearance. Why should we doubt them now?
The Lynx have lost all their key underrated players from last year: Alanna Smith, Natisha Hiedeman, Jessica Shepard and Bridget Carleton (plus DiJonai Carrington, who was only with them for part of the season).
Yes, those are big losses.
But they’ve added a former Lynx player in Natasha Howard who, at age 34, isn’t done contributing in a significant way. She averaged 11.4 points and 6.6 rebounds on 55.2 percent shooting from the field (No. 3 in the WNBA) in 44 starts for the Fever last year. Plus, they’ve added Olivia Miles, who is my pick to be the best player out of the 2026 draft, as well as returned now-EuroLeague Women MVP Dorka Juhász, who took the 2025 WNBA season off.
More importantly, Minnesota still has their top 3 scorers: Napheesa Collier, Kayla McBride and Courtney Williams, who accounted for 58.9 percent of their league-leading 86.1 points per game last year. Collier is still recovering from surgery on both ankles and isn’t expected to be back on the court until early June, but once she returns, watch out.
McBride is ranked by ESPN as the No. 23 player in the W, while Williams comes in at No. 25. McBride has been one of the league’s best sharpshooters throughout her career, and has been at her best the past two years with 208 makes at 40.1 percent. Williams is often referred to by ESPN analysts Chiney Ogwumike and Andraya Carter as the “Midrange Monster”; she’s also one of the best rebounders from the guard position in the sport. And don’t forget the 3-point shot she’s developed later in her career. She made a career-high 1.3 triples per contest in 2025 at 38.9 percent, also hitting 47 treys at 44.3 percent in 2023.
Howard, Miles, Juhász, McBride and Williams are the ancillary arguments to why the Lynx can still be one of the better teams this year. It really comes down to having one of the two best coaches in the game in Cheryl Reeve and one of the two best players in Collier.
Napheesa Collier should strike fear in opponents
Collier may not be the same player right away upon her return, but I expect her to eventually be back in the MVP race year in and year out, including putting on a stellar finish to this season.
At the beginning of last season, I wrote about the “Fear of Phee” that was spreading across the W. When I was rooting against the Lynx in the 2024 semifinals and Finals, this fear began to take hold of me. It’s the reason I won’t let go of the belief that Minnesota can still make noise this year.
As I wrote, Collier was “the head of the snake, the face of the Minnesota monster” during the 2024 playoff run. She was the MVP runner-up for the 2024 regular season and went on to all but win the championship for her team.
Then, she was the MVP frontrunner for much of the 2025 season, and likely would have won the award had it not been for the first of her ankle injuries. Last season, A’ja Wilson was not the runaway favorite like she was in 2024; it was actually Collier who dominated headlines, especially with her 50-40-90 accomplishment. She became just the second WNBA player to achieve the feat after Elena Delle Donne in 2019.
Collier finished 2025 shooting 53.1 percent from the field, 40.3 percent from 3 and 90.6 percent from the charity stripe. And she did it with the 13th-most field goal attempts (518), 14th-most free throw attempts (171) and plenty of 3-point attempts (124). So impressive. And the 2024 Defensive Player of the Year does it on both ends of the floor as well; she earned her second First Team All-Defensive and fourth All-Defensive honor last year.
Outside of Wilson, there is no better offensive weapon and no player more capable of carrying a team than Collier. She can even do things that A’ja can’t, like face up from the perimeter and play like a guard. When all else fails the Lynx this year, they will at least have her pure talent on their side, as well as her big-game mystique, which we saw nearly bring the trophy back to Minnesota in 2024.
Cheryl Reeve has been the one constant for the Lynx throughout all their success
Speaking of mystique, a lot of it revolves around Reeve as well.
She had great players during the dynasty years, but certainly added to the invincible aura that surrounded her team during that stretch with her wisdom and mentorship. Only Van Chancellor matches Reeve’s four WNBA championships. Becky Hammon’s three in her first four years prevents us from saying that Reeve is unquestionably the best coach in the league right now, but she’s certainly second if not first.
There are so many new head coaches in the league right now. In fact, 10 of the 15 are in their first or second year. Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts is in his third year, Hammon (Las Vegas Aces) is in her fifth and the Indiana Fever’s Stephanie White is in her sixth. The only one who comes close to Reeve’s 17 years is the Toronto Tempo’s Sandy Brondello, who is in her 14th season, having won it all twice (once with the Mercury and once with the New York Liberty).
Aside from just her sheer experience and number of rings, Reeve’s coaching was perhaps even more crucial than Collier’s play in leading the unheralded Lynx roster as far as they went in 2024 and 2025. Unsurprisingly, she was named Coach of the Year for her 2024 efforts; it was her record-fourth time winning the award.
How good do you think the Lynx will be this year? If you think they will be good, what are your main reasons? Is it Collier, Reeve, or someone else? Do you think they can rebound from Collier’s early-season absence? Do you think the losses of Smith, Hiedeman, Shepard and Carleton will be too much to overcome?
