Minnesota Lynx resembling championship teams of the past in more ways than one

LOS ANGELES — Experts had them ranked near the bottom of the league.

Despite a season in 2023 when the Minnesota Lynx improved from missing the playoffs the year prior to being one win away from advancing to the second round, many believed the run was a fluke. Case in point: ESPN ranking the Lynx ninth out of 12 teams in the league in its preseason rankings.

Fast forward to mid-July as the Olympic break approaches, and Minnesota is not only at the top of the Western Conference and a winner of the Commissioner’s Cup championship, it also bears resemblance to championship-caliber teams of the past.

With a 16-6 record, the Lynx are off to their best start since 2017, when they went 20-2 at the same point of the season en route to a WNBA championship. That was the final of four titles the franchise won in a span of seven years.

Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve, who coached all those championship teams, believes that although her team has had a tremendous start this season, there's still a ways to go to get where this team ultimately wants to be.

“We knew we had a great training camp, but you don't necessarily know that it’s going to translate into wins or losses. And this is not a sprint. If it was a sprint, we won,” Reeve said prior to the Lynx's blowout victory against the Sparks on Tuesday.

“It's a marathon, and so we like where our team is just a little over halfway through the season. We've got a long way to go. But I think we have felt good since training camp. Can we maintain that through the course of the season? Obviously remains to be seen.”

Maintaining that level of success is certainly not easy over the course of a season. However, for a team like the Lynx, with so much veteran experience throughout the roster, it could help alleviate growing pains that a younger or less experienced team would have to deal with.

Minnesota guard Kayla McBride, who is in her 10th season, doesn’t take for granted how important it is having veterans on a squad looking to win a championship.

“It’s experience, you can't duplicate that,” McBride told Yahoo Sports. “ [Courtney Williams has] been in the league nine years. I mean, even [Natisha Hiedeman], she's been in the Finals. Alanna Smith, national team. These are players who have been in these situations. [Cecilia Zandalasini], Olivia Epoupa, like people have been in different situations.”

“And so that confidence that we have in our ability to not panic, our ability to stay together. Our ability to, you know, battle through adversity. I think that's what, like, instead of losing those games that maybe we would have lost early on in the season last year, we're winning those games. And that's just a testament to who we are, like our character, but where we are in our careers as well.”

McBride isn’t a stranger to being on winning teams. During the 2020 bubble season, she was the starting shooting guard for a Las Vegas Aces team that made it to the WNBA Finals. Although the two teams have their differences, the way this Lynx squad responds to adversity reminds her of the 2020 Aces.

“There's going to be tough times in the season. Wins, losses, bumps, bruises, people get injured, whatever. And I just think that our ability to kind of respond, that's what makes a great team,” McBride said.

“That's what I can think of from that 2020 season is just our ability to respond. I mean, we were in quarantine, we were in the bubble.”

Another Lynx player who has had Finals experience is combo guard Courtney Wiliams. She was the starting guard for the Connecticut Sun when they lost to the Aces in the 2022 WNBA Finals.

Williams believes that the way that this Lynx team resembles her former Sun squad, and other championship-caliber teams in general.

“I think the only thing that stays consistent when you're trying to make that championship run is understanding all the intangibles that gotta get done,” Williams told Yahoo Sports. “I think just understanding that it's all about the little things. And then when you put all those little things together and then you have a great chemistry, you know you can do something special.

"I think that we’re going to be a championship contender for sure. We have all of those things that we need to be able to do that.”

While having certain intangible qualities and a veteran presence is key for any contender, the WNBA is a star’s league. Luckily for the Lynx, they have Napheesa Collier.

Collier’s 2024 campaign has arguably been her best. She’s averaging 20 points a night along with career highs in rebounding (10.2), assists (3.7), steals (2.2) and blocks (1.5). If it weren’t for Aces forward A’ja Wilson having an all-time great season, Collier would be a frontrunner for MVP.

Many outlets, such as CBS Sports, have Collier as the favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year as her performance has helped the Lynx become the top defense in the league.

Collier’s performance this season has teammate Cecilia Zandalasini, who was also on the 2017 title team, reminiscent of another Lynx great: Sylvia Fowles.

“The leadership and always being positive, whether you do good or you do wrong, and just trying to help the team as much as possible. I think that's a big similarity I see,” Zandalasini told Yahoo Sports.

“And of course on the court they are both dominant players. Napheesa especially during this season, the past season, she’s making a big impact offensively and defensively for us especially.”

Collier has been having a special season, which adds to an outstanding career so far. But Fowles is one of the greatest players of all time and a Hall of Famer, and that’s a main difference Reeve sees between her current team and the 2017 squad.

“That team had Hall of Famers,” Reeve said. “So resemblance, I would say, is probably more in the way of intangibles. I think our emotional maturity. I think our ability to solve problems and not point fingers, not think it was somebody else that didn't do something. We come to timeouts in a way that it's really productive and so I think in that way, the chemistry and the intangibles in that regard are similar to some of the past teams that we've had that had some success.”

Looking ahead, the Lynx on Friday night are set to play a Seattle Storm squad which is two games behind them for the No. 1 seed in the West. After that, they play two under .500 teams in the Indiana Fever and the Atlanta Dream before heading into the month-long Olympic break.

On the other side of the bracket is the No. 1 seeded New York Liberty, who hold a WNBA-best 18-4 record and appear to be on the path toward a second straight Finals appearance after losing to the Aces a year ago.

The Lynx and Liberty split their two regular-season games, but Minnesota has the edge as it defeated New York in the Commissioner's Cup Championship game, 94-89, in June.

The two squads look to be on a collision course to meet again in a championship round come October. If that comes to fruition, Williams isn’t worried about the Lynx’s chances.

“S***, we're trying to beat them again,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, we can't take no team lightly. We know that they have great players. But you know, I think we got better players.”