The top team in the WNBA right now also has the No. 1 player in ESPN's midseason player rankings. On Monday, ESPN revealed that Minnesota Lynx star forward Napheesa Collier is the top overall player on their latest WNBA rankings, displacing Las Vegas Aces star center A'ja Wilson atop the list. Wilson has ranked No. 1 overall going into the 2025 WNBA regular season, but is now No. 2.

Wrote Kevin Pelton of ESPN about Collier: “For the first time, Collier tops our rankings after submitting a first half that has her in pole position for MVP. Collier leads the WNBA in scoring by more than three points per game and is a leading contender to repeat as Defensive Player of the Year, averaging a combined 3.2 steals and blocks per game. After finishing runner-up for MVP to A'ja Wilson and losing a WNBA Finals series that went the distance, Collier has established herself as the league's best player and the Lynx as the league's best team.”

Alyssa Thomas of the Phoenix Mercury, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty round out the top five players in the rankings.

With Collier leading the Lynx's attack, Minnesota is head and shoulders above the rest of the field in the WNBA standings. They are 18-4 through Sunday, while no other team has more than 14 victories. Collier, who was taken in the first round as the sixth overall pick by Minnesota in the 2019 WNBA draft, is putting up 23.6 points, grabbing 7.9 rebounds, dishing out 3.4 assists, recording 1.6 steals and swatting away 1.6 shots per game so far in the 2024 campaign.

The Lynx and the Aces have already faced off once this season, but Collier never got to share the court in that contest with Wilson, who was nursing an injury when Minnesota defeated Las Vegas at home last June, 76-62. Collier did not have a spectacular performance either in that game, scoring just seven points with six boards in 19 minutes.

Sustaining her form the rest of the way this season is going to be a challenge for Collier, but she's very much capable of doing it, with the possibility of manufacturing an even more impressive stretch in the final 22 games on the Lynx's schedule.

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