Napheesa Collier: The WNBA Star Thriving in Multiple Roles

Napheesa Collier: Leader on and off the court

Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier is at a crucial point in her career, combining her stellar performance on the court with leadership roles off it. With important negotiations underway and a WNBA season in progress, Collier demonstrates an exceptional ability to handle multiple responsibilities. Collier, in addition to being a franchise player for the Lynx and vice president of the WNBA Players Association, co-founded Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 basketball league. This summer, as she seeks to lead the Lynx to the WNBA finals and is shaping up as an MVP candidate, she is also leading the most important contract negotiations in the league’s history. The current collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of the season, and the talks are high-stakes.

“I understand you’re never going to please everyone… It’s just a matter of figuring out [how] to compartmentalize everything, honestly.”

Napheesa Collier

Part of Collier’s influence comes from the league she helped create, Unrivaled, which offers players more control and financial options. “That should allow us to make more money in the W. I feel like it gives us an advantage because it gives the players more power. There is more than one league we can play in, and we all want to play in the WNBA,” Collier commented.

Life on and off the court is a constant juggling act for Napheesa Collier, but bringing a WNBA title to Minnesota is one of the things at the top of her list. Collier is known for her game, but not for her provocations. Her teammate Courtney Williams comments that Collier “talks sh…, but it’s not good.” However, Collier has her intense moments. In the televised WNBA All-Star draft, Collier wore an Unrivaled jersey and celebrated each selection of a former teammate with the team’s battle cry. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve describes Collier as someone who makes statements without making much noise. “Having an edge is a must. If you don’t have an edge, you can’t reach your greatest heights,” Reeve said. That advantage has led her to lead the WNBA in scoring and shooting percentage, as well as being an MVP candidate. Off the court, that’s why her colleagues want her involved in collective bargaining negotiations. She also helped build a professional league from scratch and revolutionize the way players are paid.

WNBA players have expressed the need for increased salaries and a revenue-sharing system. Unrivaled already offers both, paying its 36 players an average salary of $220,000 and giving shares to the players who participated in the inaugural season. During All-Star weekend, more than 40 players gathered in Indianapolis to participate in the first face-to-face meeting between the union and league officials since December. Player Breanna Stewart described it as a “missed opportunity”. Players want a system that allows them to earn a greater percentage of league revenue. The WNBA has a new media rights deal with ESPN, Amazon, and NBA for $200 million over 11 seasons, and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that television viewership has increased by 23%, attendance by 26%, and merchandise sales by 40%.

“We feel like we’re owed a piece of the pie that we helped create,” Collier said.

Napheesa Collier

The players made a unified statement in Indianapolis, wearing warm-up jerseys that said “Pay us what you owe us” before the All-Star game. Fans had their own signs that said “Pay the players”, and when Engelbert handed Collier the MVP trophy after his team won the All-Star, chants of “pay them” rained down from the stands. “That gave me chills,” Collier said. “It really showed us that the fans are with us and understand what we’re fighting for.” Collier also made it clear that she wants the WNBA to succeed. “I am also employed by the W, so if I am working against the W, I am taking money away from myself,” Collier said. “Of course, I want us to get paid as much money from the W as we can because I am playing in it.” Her partner at Unrivaled made it clear that their league does not intend to threaten the WNBA, but rather to serve as a challenge to raise its standards.

“We just want to be on a page where we can work together and make all things happen smoothly,” Stewart said, “because I don’t think lifting one league should tear down another.”

Breanna Stewart

Collier didn’t want to touch a basketball after the Lynx’s defeat in the 2024 WNBA Finals. The series went all the way, with New York winning Game 5 in overtime. The Lynx were devastated by the result and angry with the officiating. Collier commented: “I was fed up.” However, Unrivaled would start in just two months, and with so much at stake in the success of the emerging league, Collier knew she had to give her best. So she only took a week of training, returning three weeks earlier than usual.

She wasn’t ready to quit yet, so she went to the gym for several hours each day for a month and a half. Collier focused on weightlifting, trying to gain more muscle mass than she does during the WNBA season. Once she arrived in Miami, where Unrivaled is played, in December, she picked up a ball and started working on her skills.

Collier wanted to work on ball handling and 3-point shooting, and Reeve set the goal for Collier to become a 50-40-90 player, the uncommon achievement of shooting 50% from the field, 40% from 3-point range, and 90% at the free throw line. Collier dominated the 3-on-3 league. She won the mid-season individual tournament and was selected MVP of the inaugural league, leading the Lunar Owls to a 12-2 regular season record. They were the number 1 seed before being defeated by the Vinyl in the first round.

For all her success in Miami, Collier said she wasn’t trying to make a statement about the previous season. “I wasn’t focused on the WNBA,” she said. “I was focused on Unrivaled and on myself.”

Collier followed the guiding principle that has allowed him to undertake so much: “It’s trying to focus on what’s in front of me. I feel that’s the only way to get through things. There are always so many things happening that you can’t focus on everything at once.” But when Reeve watched her star player from afar, she noticed an extra fire.

“You can’t escape the idea that there was fuel that came from not being able to complete the mission of a championship and how it happened,” Reeve said. “Maybe that was the beginning of her saying, ‘No, I want to win this'”.

Cheryl Reeve

As was the case in Unrivaled, Collier is at the center of everything the Lynx do. And the pain of falling short last fall, in the MVP race, where she finished second behind Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, and in the Finals, where the Lynx were outscored 7-2 in overtime in the deciding game, still lingered. Almost every interaction Collier had during the 2024 WNBA season included someone congratulating her on a fantastic season, although she considered herself to have fallen short. “That was the shift for her… she came into this season with a chip on her shoulder, appropriately backing up the words of: ‘Yes, I’m a sore loser because I want to win,'” Reeve said. “She came in with that, and I was so happy.” Collier added: “[It’s] taking all that anger, frustration, and disappointment and turning it into: We don’t want to feel like this again. We have to make sure that, individually, we are doing everything in the offseason to improve and then come back and have a different result.” His sharpened focus has led to personal statistical peaks. Collier is averaging a career-high 23.2 points on 51.7% shooting (his highest shooting percentage since his second season). He is also accumulating 7.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.8 blocks, and 1.6 steals.

“Of course, I want to be the MVP,” Collier said. “But I never go into a game like: ‘I need to get this many points and I need to get mine so I can get my MVP numbers.’ You see it year after year: if your team is winning, you’ll get the awards. My number 1 goal is a championship. I much prefer to get the Finals MVP than the league MVP, because that means we win.”

Napheesa Collier

When the team showed up for the first day of training in May, Reeve told her players that their path back to the Finals would be even more difficult than getting there in 2024. “I had to repeatedly remind them that their starting point is not where we finished,” Reeve said. “I was trying to get them to understand that if you make assumptions and skip steps, you can’t go back to where we were. We have to do it all again… our starting point is zero, it’s not the team we were at the end of last season.” At first, Collier had to ask Reeve what he meant. Reeve clarified: “Each trip is different, and the challenges will be different.” This season has been a building process for the Lynx. They started the season with a 9-0 streak, but played below their high standards, winning games down the stretch, outplaying them, rather than dominating. They went through what they consider a slump, going 3-2 in their last five games before the All-Star break, although that was at the end of a 10-game stretch in 18 days that Reeve called “one of the most illogical schedules in my 25 years of doing it”. With 17 games remaining in the regular season, Minnesota wants its final identity to take shape, and the Lynx began the final stretch of the season with a 23-point win over the Chicago Sky and a 31-point win over the Aces. There is an understanding in Minnesota that, no matter how complete the roster is and how complete the Lynx team is, they will only go as far as Collier takes them. She is the center of everything they do.

“I think pressure is a great thing. You have to perform well under pressure and I think I do,” Collier said. “This team is mine. If we win or lose, both will be my responsibility. There’s a lot more on your plate, but I think it makes me a better player.”

Napheesa Collier

After lunch, Collier heads downtown for a much overdue pedicure appointment. Between Mila, the Lynx, the WNBPA, and Unrivaled, quiet moments for self-care are rare. As soon as she gets home, she plans to take a nap before Mila is picked up from school. Her husband, Alex Bazzell, who is also the president of Unrivaled, will have business updates from the league. And the next day, she and the Lynx face the Aces. The jump from one world to another continues.

“I feel like it all happened gradually, not all at once,” Collier said. “So it feels manageable, but obviously, I feel a lot of pressure.”

Napheesa CollierCollier never demonstrates it.

“He has more grace in his pinky than I do in my whole body,” Reeve said. “He’s so elegant in everything he does that he makes it look easy. And I’m sure it’s not… but he never seems overwhelmed.”

Cheryl Reeve

This calm and serene exterior, as Collier navigates his responsibilities, his different worlds, is something he learned as a child from his father. He told him to stay humble off the court and never show frustration on it, a tactic that will get under his opponents’ skin more than anything else. To be impassive. Now, that applies to all facets of Collier’s life. A fanbase in Minnesota desperate for a championship. Teammates preparing for a labor battle. A stubborn girl who might need more than cheese sticks to put on her shoes next time.

“Everyone trusts me,” Collier said. “And when I think about it like that, for some reason, it takes the pressure off. You can disappoint yourself, but I don’t want to disappoint them.”

Napheesa Collier