secured her second MVP award<\/a>: 23.0 points, 9.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.6 blocks and 1.5 steals. She shot 46.5% from the field and 35.5% from downtown.<\/p>\n\u201cI do think that sometimes when you have a level of, I guess, success for so long in your career, sometimes it can be overlooked. I feel like it\u2019s our job as a team, organization \u2026 everybody to just continue to highlight what Stewie is doing because it is a really great job she\u2019s doing. It\u2019s something superb,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how she couldn\u2019t be part of those conversations,\u201d Rebecca Allen added. \u201cThat shocks me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the support, Stewart\u2019s efforts this season likely isn\u2019t enough to win the award for the third time.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, Las Vegas Aces superstar A\u2019ja WIlson is the clear-cut favorite (-500) to win the award for the fifth time in her career.<\/p>\n
In her ninth season, she is averaging 26.6 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.5 steals and 2.0 blocks through 28 games. Wilson is averaging a career-high in three-point percentage (44.6% on 2.3 attempts) while anchoring the defense of the second-seeded Aces.<\/p>\n
The Liberty entering Thursday seventh in standings (6.5 games back of No. 1 seed Lynx) potentially hurts Stewart\u2019s case in any MVP discussion.<\/p>\n
Still, Jones feels Stewart has a case to be mentioned as a frontrunner despite Wilson\u2019s otherworldly results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the conversation is about your consistency. It\u2019s about your numbers. It\u2019s about how much you mean to your team. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s like a direct comparison between A\u2019ja and Stewie,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI think it\u2019s about the most valuable player to their team, and I think that\u2019s what [Stewart] is for us. And that level of consistency within itself should have her in those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
BetMGM has Minnesota Lynx rookie standout Olivia Miles (19.7 points, 5.8 assists and 4.7 rebounds) with the second-best odds (+900) for MVP. Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (+1300) and Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers (+1700) are listed third and fourth, respectively, by the sportsbook.<\/p>\n
Stewart\u2019s fingerprints are all over Liberty games.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s been the most important Liberty cog on both sides of the floor. She entered Thursday 10th in usage rate (27.0) among players with at least 15 games played. Wilson leads the WNBA with 32.2.<\/p>\n
Even with such a high involvement in the Liberty\u2019s offense, the ball doesn\u2019t tend to stick to Stewart for long stretches without opportunities to get teammates involved.<\/p>\n
And she\u2019s constantly tasked with slowing down some of the best opposing players in the WNBA on some nights, and playing a free safety role to help her teammates on the defensive end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breanna Stewart is carrying the Liberty this season \u2014 and her teammates feel that the superstar\u2019s performances are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[650,646,435,1760,4129,14400,13970,28490,15114,2833,99,13469,434,79168],"class_list":["post-805052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-aces","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-fever","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-liberty","tag-lynx","tag-olivia-miles","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-sports","tag-wings","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-mvp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}