The 2025 WNBA MVP race is heating up — and while there are plenty of athletes who have offered impressive performances this season, there are five who are truly special.
5. Kelsey Mitchell
The Indiana Fever is having an extraordinarily tough 2025 season but have managed to fight through injuries an unexpected player departures — and Mitchell has been a huge part of the reason why. As a seven-year veteran of the team, Mitchell has been tested over the years, but she's never quite been called upon to perform like she has this season.
Luckily, she's made it all look so remarkably easy. The 3-time WNBA All-Star has carried the Fever on her back in August, a humbling reminder to the rest of the league that she's one of the toughest around. Mitchell is averaging 20.6 points per game — a career high — and 1.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists. It would take a lot for Mitchell to unseat the rest of this list, but never say never. As we've seen throughout the 2025 season, stranger things can (and often will) happen.
4. Allisha Gray
The Dream is experiencing a blockbuster 2025 season that seems to have caught nearly everyone off-guard, and they owe that in part to the tremendous work Allisha Gray has put into every single match this year. She's in the middle of the best season of her career, and is averaging 18.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.8 assists per game.
Gray also ranks second in the league in terms of 3-pointers made and 5th in total points. She started off the season with a bang and has been relentless in her pursuit of greatness (Graytness?) and is showing absolutely no sign of slowing down.
3. Napheesa Collier
Collier came into the 2025 season as the most likely challenger to A'ja Wilson's MVP title, and for a long time, it looked like it was in the bag. Granted, she's been out with an injured ankle since August 2, and before then was averaging 23.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game. That injury allowed Alyssa Thomas the opportunity to dominate even more than she already has, and that might just be what knocks Collier out of MVP contention (and could even give Gray and Mitchell more room to move up the list).
Collier has played a kind of basketball that is genuinely inspirational this year, but even if she plays the rest of the season she'll have missed 22% of the team's games — and that makes MVP candidacy tough to achieve.
2. Alyssa Thomas
To say Alyssa Thomas is an unprecedented player in the WNBA is not an understatement — it is simply a fact. It's unclear if Thomas read what Mercury doubters had to say about the team during the preseason or not, but she's determinedly put in the work and largely been the singular reason the team has done as well as it has all season long.
Thomas has 19 double-doubles this season and clocked the 100th of her career on August 22. Though the Mercury aren't quite where they'd like to be in terms of team rankings (at time of writing, the team is ranked No. 4 overall), Thomas is the biggest reason they're as high as they are. She deserves a little more respect than than she's received so far, and her position on this list has been earned.
1. A'ja Wilson
Search your heart: are any of us really surprised Wilson has managed to climb right back to the top of the MVP list at this point in the season? There are great players but then there are truly excellent athletes who can deliver stunning performances, provide leadership that motivates, and somehow manage to entertain and be gracious at press conferences (a notoriously not fun experience for many WNBA athletes). Wilson is the complete package, and the possibility that the 3-time MVP will snag her fourth crown is legitimate and real.
As Becky Hammon put it Saturday, there are "zero doubts" Wilson deserves the honor for the fourth time. There are very few players like Wilson (who is averaging 23.2 points and 10.2 rebounds) in league history, and once again it might just be time for the rest of us to sit back and enjoy the show.