put Olivia Miles at the top of its latest WNBA power rankings on Tuesday, naming the 23-year-old rookie point guard the best player to build a franchise around. The choice puts Miles ahead of a field that includes some of the league’s most decorated stars and signals how quickly her value has risen.
That is why WNBA games today are being read with a different lens in Minnesota. Miles has helped push the Minnesota Lynx to a WNBA-best 15-4 record, while ranking 10th in scoring, eighth in assists, second in win shares and sixth in defensive rating. For a rookie, those numbers do more than support the ranking. They explain it.
The debate would look very different if Napheesa Collier were available. Collier is a five-time All-Star, a former Defensive Player of the Year and the second WNBA player to join the 50-40-90 club, but offseason ankle surgery has kept her out all season. That absence leaves Minnesota to build around Miles right now, even as Collier remains the kind of player many would still call the obvious centerpiece.
’s weekly rankings also placed A’ja Wilson at the top of a different tier of star power. Wilson won her fourth MVP award last season, has three championships, three Defensive Player of the Year awards and two Finals MVP awards, and she leads the league with 25.7 points per game. Gabby Williams, meanwhile, has kept Golden State in the mix by leading the team with 15.8 points per game and averaging 1.5 steals, a year after leading the WNBA in steals and earning her first All-Defensive First Team nod.
Breanna Stewart remains another measuring stick for the league’s best. In her 10th season, she is a three-time champion, two-time WNBA Finals MVP and two-time league MVP who leads New York in points, steals and blocks while ranking second in rebounds. She has scored in double digits in all but one game and has seven double-doubles, a reminder of how crowded the top of the league still is.
The ranking matters because it shows how fast the conversation has shifted from résumé to trajectory. Paige Bueckers led the WNBA GM Survey with 33 percent of the vote on who a franchise should be built around, while Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson tied for second at 20 percent and Dominique Malonga finished third with 13 percent. ’s choice of Miles does not erase that broader debate. It sharpens it, and it leaves one question hanging over Minnesota: when Collier returns, does the franchise-cornerstone answer stay the same?
