What does it mean to be the "most valuable" player?
Minnesota's Napheesa Collier is the best player on the best team in the WNBA. Her elite individual play is what takes a Lynx team that would be good and elevates them to the top of the league.
Las Vegas' A'ja Wilson is the most dominant player in the WNBA, factoring in both volume and efficiency. Wilson has carried the Aces on her back this season, taking a team that struggles without her to the second-best record in the league.
Which of these seasons is the most valuable?
According to ESPN BET, Collier is a runaway favorite to win the MVP award this season at -800 
odds, meaning one would have to bet eight units to win only one. Wilson is second at +450
(betting one unit to win 4.5). These odds suggest that the MVP race is over, with Collier as the clear and obvious winner.
But is that true? I would argue that even a cursory look at this season shows the MVP race is competitive, and a closer look suggests that there could easily be more than one player with a very legitimate argument as the winner.
Collier and Wilson by the numbers
Collier, the frontrunner, and Wilson, the defending and 3-time MVP, face off when the Minnesota Lynx play the Las Vegas Aces on Thursday. Let's take that closer look at the tremendous seasons both players have put together as we help answer the question of who should really be the MVP this season.
These are clearly the best two-way players in the WNBA, and they are virtually tied for the league lead in scoring; Collier a decimal ahead with 23.5 PPG vs. Wilson's 23.4 PPG. Collier is more efficient from all areas of the court, shooting 57.8% on 2-pointers, 38.5% from behind the arc and 90.9% from the line with 2.2 TOs/game. Wilson has made 50.9% on 2s, 34.6% from 3 and 84.9% from the line. Wilson, on the other hand, is better at drawing fouls, drawing 7.6 FTA per game vs Collier's 5.5.
On defense, 2023 Defensive Player of the Year Wilson has the numerical advantage on 2024 DPoY Collier. Wilson leads the WNBA with 2.2 BPG and 3.8 combined blocks and steals. Collier is top-5 in both categories, ranking second with 3.3 combined blocks and steals.
The real separation between the two is on the glass. Wilson is second in the WNBA with 10.1 RPG, and ranks third in the league with a defensive rebound percentage of 29.5%. Collier averages 7.5 RPG with a 19.9% defensive rebound percentage.
Collier is an excellent on-ball defender and makes it difficult for her assignment to score, but Wilson's combination of rim protection, disruption and then ending the possession with the board is unmatched in the league this year and allows her to have the larger overall defensive impact.
In addition to the per-game averages, we also have to acknowledge that Collier has missed a significant portion of the season with an ankle injury. With the adage that the best ability is availability, we should acknowledge the point Aces coach Becky Hammon made about Wilson leading the WNBA in several volume categories, including most total points (Wilson 841, Collier seventh with 704) and most total rebounds (364, tied with Angel Reese).
There are also several different composite box score stats meant to estimate overall production, such as Player Efficiency Rating (Wilson 32.5 PER, No. 1 in WNBA vs. Collier's 31.2 PER, No. 2) or Win Shares (Wilson listed as slightly ahead but both rounded to 7.9 win shares, first and second in WNBA). Even fantasy basketball production is a simple type of one-number evaluator, with Wilson leading the league in both per-game average (44.6 FP/G vs Collier's 42.3 FP/G) and total (1605 FP vs Collier's 1270) in the ESPN scoring system.
But not everything can be found in the box scores or based on one number.
Impact on team success
While the box score statistics are good for looking at the mechanisms for how a player makes their impact, we have many ways to estimate a player's impact on their team's ability to win using methods beyond the box scores. Here, let's use both Net Points and on-court/off-court plus minus (+/-) to illustrate what Collier and Wilson have accomplished for their teams this season.
My colleague Dean Oliver introduced Net Points, an all-encompassing metric that uses play-by-play data to evaluate a player's performance. According to Oliver, Net Points "quantifies every rebound, shot, turnover and free throw and assigns credit and blame to the players on the court. It divides credit and blame based on the difficulty of the players' contributions to the success or failure of the team."
Collier leads the WNBA this season with 162 Net Points, with Wilson second at 139.
On-court/off-court +/- measures the difference between a team's scoring margin when a given player is on the court and when they are off the court, including missed games. This approach helps estimate how much of a team's success can be isolated to an individual as opposed to the team unit.
In this metric, Wilson is an outlier this season. Per basketball-reference, the Aces are 27.7 points per 100 possessions better with Wilson on the court versus when she's off. The Lynx are 11.9 PP100 better with Collier on the court vs. when she's off.
Collier's on-court +/- of +18.1 PP100 is the highest mark in the WNBA, but her off-court of +6.2 is also the highest mark in the WNBA among team leaders. Wilson's on-court +/- of 9.6 is fourth among team leaders, but the Lynx are -18.1 PP100 with her on the bench, the worst mark for any team minus their team leader outside of the Sky (-19.3 PP100).
Taken together, these two metrics indicate that Collier is taking the best supporting cast in the WNBA but elevating them significantly to the clear-cut best unit when she's on the court. Wilson, on the other hand, is taking a cast that without her challenges for the worst play in the WNBA this season and is carrying them to an extreme degree to get them up to the second-best team in the WNBA
How to bet the WNBA MVP race
If you're betting at this point in the season, it makes no sense to bet on Collier at -800. There is no juice there, not enough reward to make the best worth it.
But, is there a legitimate chance that Wilson could win at this point?
The above analysis suggests strongly that Wilson has a very good case to win her second MVP in a row and fourth in the past six years.
But what do the voters think?
Voters are often influenced by narrative, and Collier's best player on best team narrative is a strong one. Also, the Lynx dominated the Aces the last time they played with a 53-point win.
On the other hand, that was the game when everything changed. Collier got hurt in that game and missed the next seven contests. Meanwhile, Wilson's Aces haven't lost since that game and enter the rematch on a 12-game winning streak. If the Aces were to defeat the Lynx and win-out, giving them a 16-game winning streak to end the season, it could be an event that catches voters eyes as they make their MVP decision.
Collier is still the overwhelming favorite to win her first MVP, and for good reason. But Wilson has a strong case and is returning much better value (+450). If you are going to bet on MVP at this point in the season, the bet to make is for Wilson.