Napheesa Collier, center, with Lynx teammates including Dorka Juhasz, left, and Kayla McBride, right, celebrate their dramatic 82-80 victory over the New York Liberty in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals on Oct. 18 at Target Center. The victory forced a deciding Game 5. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Sportsperson of the year

Napheesa Collier’s drive means unrivaled success ... but she wants more

The Minnesota Star Tribune Sportsperson of the Year won Olympic gold, led the Lynx to the WNBA Finals and is starting a new women’s basketball league.

By Kent Youngblood

The Minnesota Star Tribune

December 29, 2024 at 12:01am

apheesa Collier is still climbing.
That might seem strange.
Hasn’t Collier — daughter, mother, wife, basketball star, entrepreneur — already arrived? Hasn’t she already been an All-Star four times, won two Olympic gold medals, twice finished in the top five in WNBA MVP voting and twice been first-team all-league? Isn’t she the reigning Defensive Player of the Year?

Didn’t her leadership help turn the 2024 Lynx into a cohesive unit that, underappreciated to start the season, overachieved its way to within seconds of a victory in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals?

Yes.

Today, for all she did in 2024, we designate her the Minnesota Star Tribune Sportsperson of the Year.

Does that get her to the peak of her climb?

No.

Because of what she didn’t do in 2024, the pain lingers.

“I don’t know if it will ever go away,” Collier said. “Hard wins, great losses, they stick with you.”

Collier could only watch from the bench after fouling out in overtime of Game 5 of the WNBA Finals against the Liberty in New York, with teammate Olivia Epoupa to her right. The painful 67-62 loss, and its controversy, is a fresh source of motivation for Collier. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Lynx fans will remember. Game 5 of the WNBA Finals against the New York Liberty in Brooklyn. The Lynx led by two when Lynx center Alanna Smith was called for a foul on New York’s Breanna Stewart with five seconds left in the fourth quarter, a questionable call that came after an apparent travel that forced overtime.

The game ended in a 67-62 Lynx loss and the spectacle of the Liberty celebrating with league Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who was wearing a dress showing the New York skyline.

This memory is seared into Collier’s brain.

And, really, nothing is going to dull that sting, not completely. Not the love of her teammates — the Lynx return all five starters for next year. Not the time the players spent on the court and off, usually at one of Kayla McBride’s barbecue parties.

“We walked out of the Finals saying Napheesa was the best player on the court,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. “That’s an incredible accomplishment.”

If not for a historic season by A’ja Wilson, Collier would have been the WNBA MVP as well as Defensive Player of the Year. She finished fifth in the league in scoring (20.4), second in player efficiency and steals (1.9), third in rebounding (9.7) and minutes (34.7) and seventh in blocks (1.9).

Collier and Connecticut Sun forward DeWanna Bonner battle for a rebound in the deciding Game 5 of the WNBA semifinals at Target Center. The Lynx achieved far more last season than had been expected, thanks to Collier’s MVP-like efforts on the court. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Then in the playoffs, the 28-year-old native of Jefferson City, Mo., scored 23.8 points with 9.9 rebounds, shooting 52.5% overall and 41.4% on three-pointers, with 2.1 steals and 1.9 blocks. She opened the playoffs scoring 80 points in two games against Phoenix, ended them with a frown, in front of the media after an excruciating loss already thinking about the next step.

“Winning a WNBA title.”

So, folks, you’ve been warned.

“It stuck with her longer than anything I’ve seen,” said her husband, Alex Bazzell, who has built a life around basketball, too. They have a daughter, Mila, and Alex is a trainer who has worked with several NBA and WNBA stars. He is the president of the Unrivaled league — co-founded by Collier and, perhaps a bit ironically, Stewart — a 3-on-3 women’s league that is going to pay better than any team sport in U.S. women’s history and will open training camps in Florida in early January.

Bazzell has known Collier, who won an NCAA title at UConn in 2016, for years. He was there in 2018 when her Huskies lost to Notre Dame on Arike Ogunbowale’s fade-away three with three seconds left in the NCAA championship.

“She doesn’t sit there and go, ‘Oh, woe is me,’” Bazzell said. “It’s more, ‘I have to use this as motivation now to get past that point. It’s not going to be the defining moment of my career.’

“She’s gone through her fair share of heartbreaks. But this one she’s taken a lot more personally. She felt like they had it and it was gone. That’s a tougher pill than a great player hitting a shot. I think this is going to unlock another level for her.”

Collier is introduced before a game last July 4 against the Sun at Target Center. As much as Collier has become a star, teammates and coaches alike admire her humility. “She knows who she is. When the game stops, she goes back to being Phee,” McBride said. (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

A year to remember

Every year, it seems, has come with a new level, ever since Collier — the sixth pick, right after Ogunbowale, in the 2019 draft — came to Minnesota and won WNBA Rookie of the Year.

Again, strange: Surrounded by the best team in her WNBA career, Collier realized it was time to do more in 2024. Talk more, lead more, be more aggressive. Collier is the rare star who helped build a cohesive team by doing more herself.

The 2024 Lynx were a deep, talented team. There were outside shooters like McBride and Bridget Carleton, a wizard in the pick-and-roll in point guard Courtney Williams, an active center in Smith, who meshed with Collier like they’d played together for years. McBride was an All-Star, Smith on the all-defensive team, Carleton one of the WNBA’s most improved players.

You’d think the ultimate collaborator would blend in, lead by example, take advantage of the depth around her. She did all that, but …

“She had the realization when it was her time to take over,” Reeve said. “Do her thing, maximize what was around her. Put the team on her back.”

Check, check and check.

Collier is a force at both ends of the court, as when she defended, at left, against Dallas Wings guard Jacy Sheldon during a game last June, or drove to the basket around Connecticut Sun defender Brionna Jones, right, in Game 4 of the WNBA semifinals in October. Collier is the ultimate team player, but coach Cheryl Reeve said she has learned when to take charge. “She had the realization when it was her time to take over. Do her thing, maximize what was around her,” Reeve said. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

“That’s what I focused on,” Collier said. “Being really aggressive, throughout the game. I did that better this year.”

McBride has more than a decade in the WNBA, and she has never seen such a combination of ability and amity. “Phee” was both the Lynx’s engine and its fuel.

“At this point in my career I can safely say Phee is one of one,” McBride said. “In her ability to be tenacious, so completive, just a superstar. I mean, this is a superstar.

“But she is also one of the humblest, nerdiest, normal human beings. That is what makes her so special. She knows who she is. When the game stops she goes back to being Phee. That’s refreshing.”

The key to her game? She is not the fastest, the biggest, the quickest player. And yet Collier blocks many shots, deflects even more. On the offensive end she scores no matter the matchup.

Reeve said the biggest growth came on defense, elevating her on-ball work, rebounding at a high level, paying attention to detail.

Offense? Bazzell has a theory. Guarding Collier is difficult for two reasons. First, he said, is her touch, the way the ball comes off her hands. A lot of things can be taught, but not that. Bazzell likened her to Carmelo Anthony, whose touch made him a 10-time NBA All-Star.

The second reason is Collier’s instincts off the ball. She has worked harder to hunt for her touches, to get to her preferred spots on the floor.

“I would compare it to Steph [Curry] in the NBA,” Bazzell said. “It’s what makes him great and her great. They’re not just running around, they’re cutting with a purpose. Always at the right moment. That’s impossible to game-plan for. You can look at tendencies all you want. But there’s not a lot of tendencies in feel.”

Big things on the horizon

Oh, and during a “break” last season, Collier helped Team USA win the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, on a team coached by Reeve that included Wilson and Stewart.

Collier has simply become one of the world’s best women’s basketball players.

And yet her major contribution to the sport might not come on a WNBA court but as one of the co-founders of Unrivaled.

Interest in the game is skyrocketing. Caitlin Clark’s college impact at Iowa that made her a transcendent star is a huge reason for that, but it was already starting by the time she landed with the Indiana Fever.

There is a wave, and Collier is riding it.

“We have more opportunities now than we ever had,” Collier said. “Social media, the explosion of college basketball. It might have started in the bubble [in the 2020 COVID-truncated season played in Florida]. We are one of the only sports on TV. People watched it and, lo and behold, we got a platform. People started watching. That was the beginning. I feel lucky to be a part of this time.”

Yes, just the start. Unrivaled is paying good salaries, offering players equity in the new league. They are using social media to build individual brands within the team sport, backed by investors who have raised more than $25 million.

Along with playing in the Olympics and leading her team to the WNBA Finals, Collier is also a devoted mother to 2-year-old daughter Mila, at left, juggling her other roles as a wife and entrepreneur. Collier is serious in her approach to her responsibilities, but also exudes an undeniable joy, as when she hugged teammate Natisha Hiedeman, at right, after being taken out of a game last July against Atlanta at Target Center. (LeftTop photo by Carlos Gonzalez, rightbottom photo by Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

There are times when those around her marvel at Collier’s ability to do so much as a mom, wife, player, businesswoman.

“And being all things to a team, to Team USA, to us, to her daughter, her husband, it’s a lot,” Reeve said. “She’s so graceful. I’m a bull in a china shop. She has a grace only a person like me can appreciate.”

Well, maybe not the only one.

“It has helped me grow as a player and a person seeing how well she carries all of it,” McBride said. “And with so much grace. She doesn’t need anything more than she already has. She’s content being Phee.”

Well, there is one thing she might like. A title.

“That’s the plan,” she said.

Collier celebrates a three-point basket in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals in New York. After coming tantalizingly close to a championship last season, Collier’s determination to complete the task next season can’t be overstated. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Napheesa Collier’s drive means unrivaled success ... but she wants more

The Minnesota Star Tribune Sportsperson of the Year won Olympic gold, led the Lynx to the WNBA Finals and is starting a new women’s basketball league.

A year to remember

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Big things on the horizon

about the writer

Kent Youngblood