Last week, on Twitter/X Rebecca Lobo offered her estimation of the 2023 WNBA MVP race:
This year’s MVP vote will be a reflection of voter philosophy:
1.) Best player in the league
2.) Most outstanding player on the team with the best record
3.) Player most valuable to her teamAnd you can’t go wrong with any of them.
— Rebecca Lobo (@RebeccaLobo) September 6, 2023
No. 1 is the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart, No. 2 is the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson and No. 3 is the Connecticut Sun’s Alyssa Thomas.
Fans in Las Vegas likely protest the suggestion that Stewart, not Wilson, is the league’s best player. Likewise, fans in Brooklyn and Vegas will claim that Stewart and Wilson are just as valuable to their teams as Thomas is to hers.
Nevertheless, Lobo succinctly captures the state of the 2023 MVP race, where a voter’s interpretation of “valuable” will determine whether they see Stewart, Wilson or Thomas as most worthy, albeit not singularly worthy, of winning MVP. However, she did omit players from non-contending teams, thereby establishing winning at a high level as an unstated prerequisite for MVP consideration.
Below, Eric Nemchock, Edwin Garcia and Cat Ariail will outline the MVP credentials for Stewart, Wilson and Thomas before Chelsea Leite…
