It’s time again for WNBA Tuesday! Today, we look at a season that went down a dozen years ago, the same year as the 2012 London Summer Olympics—where the U.S. women won another gold medal. Since so many players in the WNBA are American, we just felt like pointing that out. We have another first-time league champion this week, and it’s the only time this franchise has won the WNBA title. Stay tuned there?!

2012 WNBA MVP: Tina Charles, C, Connecticut (original); Tamika Catchings, F, Indiana (revised)

In one of the worst votes we’ve encountered here so far in this WNBA miniseries, Connecticut Sun center Tina Charles won the MVP, despite finishing ninth in both PER (23.3) and WS (5.5). That’s pretty brutal. The real candidates, in our perspective, were Indiana Fever forward Tamika Catchings (27.3 PER, 7.8 WS) and Minnesota Lynx F Maya Moore (25.1 PER, 7.4 WS). No one else really presented a good enough combo here.

With the Lynx posting a league-best 27 victories, it’s easy to give this nod, once again, to Catchings, who led the Fever to 22 wins. Both players were singularly good on their respective rosters, but Catchings had higher sabermetric marks for a “lesser” team. So she wins our hardware here—for the fourth time overall and the third time in a row. She was a dominant force in the league, something Caitlin Clark knows little of.

2012 WNBA ROTY: Nneka Ogwumike, F, Los Angeles (original, confirmed)

With a whopping 5.9 WS—yes, basically twice as much as Clark earned in 2024—Los Angeles Sparks F Nneka Ogwumike won the ROTY vote, easily. For the record, the next-best rookie posted 2.9 WS (Tulsa Shock F Glory Johnson), which is just a sliver below what Clark achieved. But we digress, again: Ogwumike finished fourth in WS and seventh in PER (23.8). Just another ROTY winner who was far better than … yeah.

2012 WNBA DPOY: Catchings (original); Sancho Lyttle, F, Atlanta (revised)

Only three players deserve consideration for this award, won by Catchings in the vote: Atlanta Dream F Sancho Lyttle (3.2 DWS), Catchings (2.8), and Sparks F/C Candace Parker (2.6). Not only did the Lyttle have the highest DWS mark, but her team was also the least of the three (19 wins), with the thinnest margin for postseason error. The Sparks won 22 times, and so we will give our trophy here to Lyttle, in a surprise.

2012 WNBA FINALS MVP: Catchings (original, confirmed)

The Fever won the championship playoff with a 7-3 run through Atlanta, Connecticut, and Minnesota. And of course, it was Catchings leading the way for her team with 2.1 WS in just 10 games. Remember, Clark netted just 3.0 WS in a 40-game regular season. This is the only trophy in our collection that Catchings had yet to win, so it is about time! For the record, she joins Lauren Jackson as the only WNBA players to do this.