The Weekly Roundup: Why Tina Charles Deserves More MVP Consideration
Analyzing the conflation of team success with individual accolades in MVP voting
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The WNBA is back! After a 27-day break for the Olympics, the WNBA returned to action with the Commissioner’s Cup championship between Seattle and Connecticut. Although the majority of their starting lineup had recently returned from Tokyo after winning the Olympic gold medal, the Storm cruised to an impressive 79-57 drubbing of the Sun. Seattle players received an average payout of roughly $30,000 for the victory (nearly three times as much as the $11,356 bonus that players receive for a WNBA title); Breanna Stewart pocketed an additional $5,000 for game MVP honors. Connecticut players earned $10,000 apiece for their runner-up finish.
Sunday represented the official return of the WNBA regular season, with all twelve teams in action. Buoyed by Allie Quigley’s 17 points off the bench, which included two critical triples toward the end of regulation, Chicago topped Seattle (without Breanna Stewart or Sue Bird) 87-85 in an overtime thriller. Remember last week I mentioned that Seattle was involved in the most exciting game of the year? Per Mike Beuoy at inpredictable.com, Sunday afternoon’s contest was the second-most exciting game of the year. Not to be outdone in terms of drama, the Las Vegas Aces overcame a 21-point deficit (the WNBA record is 25 points) and escaped with an 84-83 victory against Washington. In a scene reminiscent of the overtime classic earlier this season versus Seattle, Chelsea Gray (8 points, 11 assists) nailed another game-winning pull-up jumper to put Las Vegas over the top on Sunday. Picking up where she left off in Tokyo, A’ja Wilson (20 points, 14 boards) recorded a double-double, which included 10 crucial fourth-quarter points.
In women’s basketball news overseas, the United States U19 team proved that the future of USA Basketball is bright, cruising to a 7-0 record, a 47-point average margin of victory, and a gold medal at the FIBA U19 World Cup last weekend in Hungary. University of Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark led the U.S. with 15.2 points per game and was named tournament MVP. Sonia Citron, who begins her collegiate career at Notre Dame this year, averaged 14.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per contest and was also named to the All-Star Five Team. Mirroring the success of the U.S. women’s seven consecutive Olympic gold medals, the U19 squad has won gold in eight of the last nine FIBA U19 World Cups.
The return of the WNBA and the U.S. U19 team’s gold medal win provided plenty of exciting action this past week. However, the main story in this week’s roundup has to do with Tina Charles. The regular season ends in just over a month, which means WNBA awards season is around the corner. As such, I explore the Washington center’s MVP prospects, why she has almost no chance to win the award, and why that represents a problem with how individual awards are selected.
Tina Charles for MVP 2021
Tina Charles needs an MVP campaign manager. She is on pace to break Diana Taurasi’s single-season scoring record of 25.3 points per game. The 2012 MVP is two total rebounds shy of averaging a double-double this season. With a player efficiency rating of 28.0, she trails only Jonquel Jones. She became the first player in WNBA history to record consecutive 30-point, 15-rebound performances in June, and then proceeded to duplicate the feat the very next month! Six Mystics players have missed at least four games this season, and yet she has carried this injury-plagued squad to playoff contention. For even more details regarding Charles’ remarkable season, check out Jenn Hatfield’s column at The Next. Despite all of this, Tina Charles is being left out of some MVP conversations. Why? Largely because her team is 8-11. This makes zero sense.
Three-quarters of all WNBA MVP winners have come from a team that finished the regular season with at least a share of second place. Since 2009, 70% of the players who finished in the top five of MVP voting played on a team in the top three of the regular season standings. Clearly, the conventional wisdom that the league MVP be awarded to the best player on the best team (or at least a very good team) has held throughout the WNBA’s 25-year history.
It’s time to question that conventional wisdom. Why do MVP voters conflate team accomplishments with individual accolades? Perhaps it’s just easier. In individual sports, like tennis or golf, it’s a much more straightforward endeavor to determine the player of the year. Players are almost completely in control of their destiny, so selecting player of the year honors generally comes down to who won the most.
Conversely, basketball players are very much not in total control of their team’s destiny (just ask Tina Charles this season). Therefore, MVP voters are tasked with identifying the player who has had the greatest impact on their team’s fortunes. That’s fraught with difficulty. From a team success perspective, Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson, and Jonquel Jones benefit from playing on better teams. With much of its roster on the shelf, however, Washington leans on Charles for offensive production more than any player in the league (she leads the W in usage rate), giving her more offensive opportunities than the aforementioned trio. Such differing team situations make this task challenging for MVP voters, and it’s possibly why those in charge of selecting the recipient of the league’s top individual prize often default to the “best player on the best team” criterion.
Please don’t misunderstand this commentary; Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart, and A’ja Wilson would all be worthy recipients of league MVP. Team success should have a measure of influence on who wins the award, but the pendulum has swung so far that some are now disqualifying a player currently having a season for the ages.
How do you spell incredible? Z-A-I-L-A
This is just your daily reminder that Zaila Avant-garde is a national treasure. She recently described spelling as an “hors d’oeuvre” and basketball as the “main dish.” It sounds ridiculous coming from someone who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee last month. That is until you learn she holds at least a share of the following records in the Guinness Book of World Records: most bounce juggles in one minute with four basketballs, the most basketball bounces in 30 seconds with four basketballs, and most basketballs dribbled at once. Yesterday, her ball-handling skills were on full display at yesterday’s Dallas Wings game:
WNBA schedule this week (All times Eastern)
Here is a full listing of this week’s games, start times, and where you can catch the action.
Adam’s Power Rankings
Check out the Her Hoop Stats Twitter page (@herhoopstats) today for our latest power rankings! Based on the criterion of who would win if teams played tomorrow on a neutral court, here is my contribution to those rankings:
Her Hoop Stats content in case you missed it
Her Hoop Stats released the following podcast episodes this week:
On Courtside, Christy Winters-Scott and Gabe Ibrahim recapped Team USA’s Olympic gold medal run and predicted who will make the 2024 Olympic squad.
On Unplugged, Megan Gauer and Aneela Khan discussed what they’re looking forward to in the final third of the WNBA season as well as their picks for end-of-season awards.
Over 1,000 players have played in the WNBA since its inaugural season in 1997. Jacob Mox looked back through WNBA history through the prism of these 1,000 player debuts.
Team Canada entered the Tokyo Olympic Games ranked fourth in the world. Despite its “medal or bust” mentality, Canada failed to qualify for the knockout round, managing just a 1-2 record during pool play. Aneela Khan chronicled this disappointing finish and previewed Team Canada’s roster for 2024.
USA Basketball mainstays like Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles, and (likely) Diana Taurasi have played their final Olympic games. So, what will Team USA look like at the 2024 Paris Olympics? Gabe Ibrahim prognosticated the roster’s makeup.
The WNBA trade deadline is at 8 p.m. EDT on August 21. Will we see any blockbuster deals between now and Saturday? Richard Cohen offered his thoughts as well as a handful of potential trades in the latest installment of WNBA Dissected.
In Part I of her Pac-12 preview, Kim Doss wrote about the championship prospects of Stanford, Arizona, and UCLA. Kim continued her journey through the Pac-12 in Part II, covering how the 2021-22 season will look for Oregon, Oregon State, and Colorado.
Calvin Wetzel addressed the negative stereotypes associated with junior college athletes and how prominent players like Natasha Mack benefitted from the JUCO experience.
With the WNBA season back in full swing, the Wetz Betz is back! Check out Her Hoop Stats on Twitter @herhoopstats for Calvin Wetzel’s WNBA bets. You can also follow how Calvin’s picks have performed throughout the season.
Other recommended content
Just hours before departing for the Tokyo Olympics, Katie Lou Samuelson tested positive for COVID-19. Alexa Philippou of the Hartford Courant wrote about how Samuelson dealt with the mental and physical toll associated with this devastating news.
In what is music to Mystics’ fans’ ears, Elena Delle Donne has been practicing 5-on-5 with full contact and could see action Sunday afternoon when Washington hosts Seattle. For The Next, Jenn Hatfield covered Delle Donne’s two-year journey rehabbing three herniated discs that she suffered during the 2019 WNBA Finals.
Will Seattle take home its third title in four years? Which underrated team is most likely to play spoiler? Which players will take home the individual hardware at the end of the regular season? The WNBA staff at The Athletic (Dorothy Gentry, Eliana Brown, Charlotte Carroll, Bre Singleton, Lyndsey D’Arcangelo, and Chantel Jennings) recently debated these burning questions.
Breanna Stewart has seemingly captured every individual and team accolade under the sun. That is, except WNBA Defensive Player of the Year. Em Adler of The Next made a compelling case for Stewie to take home the league’s top individual defensive honor this season.
Speaking of Breanna Stewart, congratulations to her and her wife, Marta Xargay Casademont, on the recent birth of their child! TOGETHXR and Bleacher Report documented their journey.
Women’s professional basketball trivia question of the week
Which WNBA team has the single-season record for the highest net rating (margin of victory per 100 possessions), and which team has the record for lowest single-season net rating? The two teams in question accomplished the feats in the same season, and, unsurprisingly, the team with the highest net rating also set the record for single-season winning percentage. The team with the worst net rating finished with a record that is currently tied for the third-worst of all-time.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.