Our first WNBA Tuesday entry for 2025 is an examination of the 2017 WNBA season, and this was yet another season where the Minnesota Lynx won the championship—for the fourth time in seven seasons, actually. They have not won it again since, however, despite making an appearance in the 2024 Finals. It’s been a very underrated league franchise, for sure, probably due to its location and relative anonymity.

2017 WNBA MVP: Sylvia Fowles, C, Minnesota (original, confirmed)

Lynch star center Sylvia Fowles won the MVP vote after topping the league in PER (30.8) and Win Shares (9.2). Prior to this, she’d won four award votes, although we’ve never confirmed any of them, sadly. Her only competition for this trophy is Los Angeles Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike (28.1, 8.4) and Connecticut Sun C Jonquel Jones (26.8, 7.2). The standings don’t matter much as each team was securely playoff bound.

So, in that case, we do confirm Fowles’ vote win: it’s good to see her get the recognition she deserves for being a great player (three times a DPOY vote winner) and teammate (2015 Finals MVP vote winner).

2017 WNBA ROTY: Allisha Gray, G, Dallas (original, confirmed)

The Dallas Wings secured a playoff berth by four games, thanks to the efforts of vote-winning guard Allisha Gray (2.0 WS). Perhaps they would have made it anyway, but she was the top-value rookie in this year’s class. It’s pretty easy to confirm this vote without diving too deeply into other statistical realms.

2017 WNBA DPOY: Alana Beard, G/F, Los Angeles (original); Tina Charles, C, New York (revised)

Sparks G/F Alana Beard (2.4 DWS) won the vote here, but she had two teammates who posted higher DWS marks than she did—even though she was fifth in the league. Fowles topped the league with 3.4 DWS, although she had two teammates in the Top 8 as well. If we eliminate all the teammate combos in this analysis, we end up with New York Liberty C Tina Charles (2.4) as the only “soloist” in the Top 10 overall.

The Liberty secured the third playoff seed by just one game, and as mentioned, every other player in the DWS Top 10 had teammate help on the list—except Charles. Clearly, Fowles was great, but Charles was hauling a lot of defensive water on her own. She gets our trophy here. Remember, she was the ROTY in 2010 and voted MVP in 2012. She deserves this from us, for sure.

2017 WNBA FINALS MVP: Fowles (original, confirmed)

The Lynx went 6-2 in the new playoff format to win the title, and Fowles topped the team in postseason Win Shares (1.8). F Maya Moore (1.6) was close behind, and they were the only two Minnesota players above the 1.0 threshold. Fowles won the vote; we confirm the hardware as part of her coming-out party here. Huzzah!