{"id":740303,"date":"2026-07-03T05:44:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/740303\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T05:44:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:44:24","slug":"olivia-miles-makes-bad-ideas-look-brilliant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/740303\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Miles Makes Bad Ideas Look Brilliant"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA\u2019s most exciting player is taking over the league with one devastating superpower: deception<\/p>\n

You\u2019re probably wondering how Olivia Miles ended up in this situation:<\/p>\n

\"\"CBS<\/p>\n

It happened about two weeks ago against the Las Vegas Aces. The Minnesota Lynx\u2019s supernova of a rookie dusted her idol Chelsea Gray, only to end up in midair with her afro wedged in the armpit of the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, A\u2019ja Wilson, and two Las Vegas defenders encroaching. Essentially, the basketball version of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For most first-year players, attempting to meet the league\u2019s leading shot blocker at the rim would be an overzealous mistake. But Miles, the no. 2 pick in the 2026 draft, consistently puts herself in situations that would get most players in trouble\u2014dribbling into crowds, picking up her dribble inside the arc, jumping in the air without a plan\u2014because she has options other players don\u2019t. It allows her to weaponize her greatest tool\u2014deception\u2014to its extreme.<\/p>\n

In the play above, it\u2019s only when her opponent is convinced she has no other move but to force an ill-fated layup that Miles torques her body to the sideline and makes a split-second calculation: Instead of passing the ball directly to her teammate Courtney Williams, Miles bounces the ball off the hardwood to evade the help, creating another beat of space and finding Williams for an open 3.<\/p>\n

Before this season, there were questions about whether Miles, a freewheeling playmaker, would jibe with Cheryl Reeve\u2019s strict, detail-oriented disposition. But that reading underestimated the Lynx president of basketball operations and coach\u2019s flexibility and vision, as well as Miles\u2019s intelligence. The curious child of two engineers, Miles is a magician and a mathematician at once. While she plays with the joie de vivre of youth, she also excels at all the little things that young players can struggle with: pacing, patience, control, knowing when to slow down and when to speed up. Reeve, instead of sanding off Miles\u2019s edges, has surrounded her with floor spacers and rollers, unleashing a player who can make complex reads in a simplified system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two months into her WNBA career, Miles is already one of the game\u2019s great improvisers, putting a spotlight on a team that, even though it\u2019s tied for the most titles in WNBA history, has struggled to draw in casual fans. Her trademark goggles\u2014inspiring the nickname \u201cThe Spectacle\u201d\u2014hearken back to the past and help her see into the future. As she told Sue Bird<\/a> a few weeks ago, \u201cI think I\u2019m bringing back the retro point guard vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miles, who\u2019s averaging 18.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 5.7 assists per game, is not only the runaway favorite to win Rookie of the Year but also a legitimate fringe MVP candidate, with the fourth-best odds<\/a> behind only Wilson, Caitlin Clark, and Paige Bueckers. Miles\u2019s torrid start to the season is among the best for any rookie in WNBA history, putting her alongside Caitlin and Paige as part of a golden age of point guards who will define what the future of the position looks like.<\/p>\n

Miles scored<\/a> 356 points in her first 19 games, putting her in the top 10 of all time for any rookie, ahead of names like Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker Clark, and Bueckers. She has also been the most efficient of the bunch. The Lynx rookie also boasts the best plus-minus for any WNBA player in history through their first 19 games:<\/p>\n

Olivia’s First 19 Games vs. the Past Four No. 1 PicksPointsAssistsReboundsFG\/3P\/FT%TurnoversSteals + BlocksOlivia Miles18.75.74.851.9\/32.8\/89.53.52.2Azzi Fudd (18 games)13.61.61.748.5\/38.4\/801.02.9Paige Bueckers18.25.54.144.9\/32.3\/842.32.4Caitlin Clark16.26.65.540.1\/35.5\/88.35.62.5Aliyah Boston15.92.28.563.6\/50\/78.61.02.5<\/p>\n

In a league where rookies\u2014especially guards\u2014tend to stumble out of the gate, Miles has been dominant, rendering the scouting report irrelevant and processing adjustments in real time. Regardless of opponent or strategy, she\u2019s tearing the league apart.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Golden State Valkyries became the first team to consistently go under the picks set for Miles, only to watch her drain a rookie-record eight 3s:<\/p>\n

When the Los Angeles Sparks spent the game forcing her to use her nondominant left hand, she turned the game into a layup line\u2014and let the Sparks know about it:<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

And against the Aces, who tried to turn Miles into a scorer to neutralize her playmaking, she nearly led a comeback by repeatedly challenging Wilson\u2014the staunchest isolation defender in the league\u2014at the rim:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s astounding to watch her work after she picks up her dribble. She\u2019s a great actor, using look-aways, head fakes, and hesitations to tilt defenders. The trick is never the pass itself. It’s getting you to look somewhere else first.<\/p>\n

Take this possession against the Washington Mystics two weeks ago: Miles puts Georgia Amoore in a cage, gets her in the air with a pump fake, and momentarily convinces Angela Dugalic that she\u2019s going to pass the ball to Nia Coffey on the wing before firing off a laser to Teaira McCowan for an easy layup:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Good playmakers take what the defense gives them. Great playmakers dictate what the defense gives them.<\/p>\n

Miles\u2019s scoring ability demands just as much attention as her passing, allowing Reeve to put her in the middle of what may be the WNBA\u2019s first truly heliocentric offense\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since 2011 (as far back as Synergy\u2019s database goes), Miles has logged more possessions per game as a pick-and-roll ball handler than anyone in the league aside from Chennedy Carter in 2020, when she played just 16 games.<\/p>\n

A heliocentric offense has built-in advantages; it puts the ball in the hands of the team\u2019s best scorer and decision-maker, simplifying and hyper-charging an offense at once. Roles become streamlined and specific. When Miles (who leads the league in made layups) drives, Natasha Howard (who is second in made layups) rolls and Coffey and Kayla McBride space the floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But this is a Reeve offense, so it\u2019s never going to be that simple.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the same interview with Bird, Miles defined being a point guard as \u201cbeing a general, understanding momentum swings, who has a hot hand, reading plays before they even happen, staying patient through your progressions, and being a leader.\u201d When asked to define the job of a modern point guard, she chose one word: \u201cscorer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miles, who counts Bird, Maya Moore, Steph Curry, and Luka Doncic as her biggest basketball influences, plays with a mix of new-school bucket getting and old-school table setting. She can be your offense and she can run your offense, identifying mismatches, finding McBride off screens, and even using her own pick-and-roll exploits as a decoy to tilt the defense and allow Williams\u2014who has been able to slide back to her natural position of shooting guard\u2014to run her own pick-and-rolls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Miles in the Lynx\u2019s system, the dream is to harness all of heliocentrism\u2019s advantages\u2014control, efficiency, consistency\u2014without conceding to its weaknesses, like predictability and fatigue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minnesota is where heliocentrism meets movement, which is why the return of two-time MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier, whose 2025 campaign was famously cut short due to injuries to both of her ankles, should be relatively seamless. The Lynx won\u2019t rush her, but Collier returned to practice on Wednesday and will begin ramping up soon. Reeve has built this system with both of them in mind, and she has a point guard who is smart enough to toggle between philosophies on the fly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This era of the WNBA has been defined by its guard-big duos, from Gray and Wilson to Bird and Breanna Stewart. Miles and Collier could be the next in that lineage. Minnesota, in the Collier era, has thrived by being greater than the sum of its parts and heeding Reeve\u2019s ethos of ruthless competence. But in the 2024 WNBA Finals, the Lynx eventually lost to the talent-stacked New York Liberty squad. Miles\u2019s emergence evens the playing field and raises Minnesota\u2019s ceiling, all because the system was built around her imagination and fuses her artistry with Reeve\u2019s ruthless efficiency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Seerat Sohi<\/p>\n

<\/a>Seerat Sohi covers the NBA, WNBA, and women\u2019s college basketball for The Ringer. Her former stomping grounds include Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and basements all over Edmonton.