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

brooklyn — Nafeesa Collier doesn't really care about the national attention. In a year that began with the rookie debuts of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and was punctuated by Aja Wilson's unanimous MVP win, her excellence was occasionally sidelined.

But Collier's on-court excellence spoke for itself. This season, she averaged 20.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 3.4 assists, leading the Minnesota Lynx to second place in the league. She earned Defensive Player of the Year honors for the first time in her career, a goal head coach Cheryl Reeve set for her before the season.

Now, the MVP runner-up is also the mother of a 2-year-old girl named Mila, and is helping spearhead the Lynx's championship run. WNBA Finals.

What impressed her teammates and coaches largely It's not her on-court excellence or her scoring outburst in the postseason (Collier is averaging 27.1 points per game this postseason, which is an improvement over 2015). (This is the highest scoring average of any WNBA player to reach the Finals since Maya Moore).

What stands out most is her consistency as a leader. No matter what she's going through on a personal level, as a mother and a person, Collier always makes sure to show up for her teammates the same way.

“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 realize that. If you think about it in your own life and work, there are people who don't consistently go that way.” It's different, and what kind of impact does it have? [the people around them]”

His calm and consistency has also rubbed off on his Lynx teammates.

“It's all about what you follow to be the best player you can be,” Reeve said.

Courtney Williams has played with countless stars during his eight-year WNBA career. But I've never seen her share a locker room with someone like Collier. Most strikingly for Williams,

“She just moves differently. You might think she's a role player, but that's unusual because she's a bona fide superstar, you know what I'm saying? ” Williams told SB Nation. “She's very humble and very coachable. Like Cheryl said, she shows up every day the same, and that's hard to find.”

On the other hand, Williams and his teammates are comfortable taking any feedback and criticism and holding the coaching staff and each other accountable.

“She sets the tone for everyone because it's like, if your best player is coachable, who's the one you can't coach?” Williams said. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

For Collier, everything is not as simple as usual feeling perfection. But she tries not to let anything get in the way of her role as the leader of one of the WNBA's most decorated franchises off the court.

“Obviously I have bad days, everyone has them, but I try to hide it from the team and just play professionally and be there for the team. ” Collier told SB Nation. “At the end of the day, even if you're having a bad day, it doesn't matter. I think you should come to work and do your job.”

This final is very unique in that it pits two former teammates and business partners against each other. Brianna Stewart and Napheesa Collier shared the court at the University of Connecticut and chose to co-launch the Unrivaled Basketball League, a new 3×3 professional basketball league for players, during the offseason.

Stewart remembers that when she met Collier, she struck her as a long-time freshman who didn't really know what to do.

“When I go to school, I'm like, 'Oh, what am I doing?' What's the system? How does this work?' Seeing her reach the position, just the growth and maturity, I'm always amazed because she was my freshman year,” Stewart said.

Collier was drafted by the Lynx with the sixth pick in 2019 and excelled from the jump, winning Rookie of the Year in his first year. She was named an All-Star every year during her time in the league and won two Olympic gold medals.

Her coach wants to see her get more recognition.

“I say this all the time: I think she's one of the most marketable people in sports. Forget the WNBA,” Reeve said. “Everything she is, everything she has been, she represents a beautiful family.”

“If I were a Fortune 500 company, I’d be crazy about her.”

Collier doesn't operate in a media market as robust as New York or Las Vegas. She is not very active on social media and is not very assertive like many of her teammates are. She and Lynx are used to being ignored. 9th in ESPN's preseason power rankings towards the season.

After the team's Game 3 semifinal win against the Connecticut Sun, Courtney Williams and Nafeesa Collier were asked if they had shoulder injuries.

“The chip was there. The team was ninth at 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. was done It's about knowing what we can do. ”

“Right now, it's looking good,” Collier said. “You guys keep underestimating us, but we keep doing what we're doing. When we come in and punch a team in the face, they don't have to have the same mindset. We've proven who we are throughout the season and have a lot of confidence in ourselves. We know what we're capable of and we show it every night. It doesn't really matter what other people say or believe, it only matters what this core team feels, and we We know we have something special here.”

In the WNBA Finals, the Minnesota Lynx will prove themselves on basketball's brightest stage. And at the same time, Collier gets a chance to show the world that she is as elite a player as they are.

Her head coach can't wait.

“People always say, 'She's good, but she's not as good as Aja Wilson or Brianna Stewart.' That's what we all think, right?” Reeve said. “But she's coming. She's working hard to change that narrative. She doesn't really care what people think, but I think she does.”