We keep inching closer to the present day on WNBA Tuesday: a shortened, 32-game season in 2021 was the Covid exit for the league. The Chicago Sky won their first-ever and still only championship, after a .500 regular season. Yes, this is a fact: we’re not sure any .500 team has ever won a league title in major North American sports history. Of course, some will argue this league/sport do not qualify as major. Moving on …

2021 WNBA MVP: Jonquel Jones, C, Connecticut (original); Brittney Griner, C, Phoenix (revised)

Our two top candidates here finished 1-2 in both PER and WS, although each topped the other in the opposite statistical categories: Connecticut Sun center Jonquel Jones (6.6 WS, 28.3 PER) and Phoenix Mercury C Brittney Griner (28.4 PER, 6.3 WS). Jones won the vote, as her team finished with the top record in the WNBA, although with a 12-win club making the postseason, that may become an irrelevant detail.

Yet Jones had two other teammates in the Top 6 for Win Shares, so that makes Griner a bit more valuable. The Mercury won seven fewer games, but the next-best Phoenix player was just eighth in WS overall. So, we’re going with Griner here, in her age-30 peak season here right before her foolishness caught up with her internationally. This is the first hardware we’ve given to Griner, despite her two DPOY vote wins.

2021 WNBA ROTY: Michaela Onyenwere, F, New York (original, confirmed)

The New York Liberty finished just 12-20, but they won a three-way tiebreak with the Los Angeles Sparks and the Washington Mystics to nab the last postseason berth. Their rookie forward Michaela Onyenwere (0.6 WS) may have been the reason why? But it’s hard to tell with such a low WS mark: reality is that any decent college player just stayed in school for the free year that the NCAA gave to Covid kids, so … yeah.

Onyenwere “won” the ROTY vote over two players with even lower WS marks (0.3) than hers. Indifferent confirmation here, since the pool of candidates was basically nil. But hey, at least Caitlin Clark posted more WS as a rookie in 40 games than this winner did in 32 games, right? That’s something …

2021 WNBA DPOY: Sylvia Fowles, C, Minnesota (original, confirmed)

Four Connecticut players finished in the Top 7 for DWS, as Minnesota Lynx C Sylvia Fowles (2.9 DWS) won this vote for the fourth time—even though we’ve never confirmed one of those wins. With the next-best, non-Sun player coming in at 2.3 DWS, we confirm this vote victory as that next-best player’s team finished above the Lynx in the standings as well. Easy! Fowles never won the ROTY trophy, but she’s stellar anyway.

2021 WNBA FINALS MVP: Kahleah Copper, G/F, Chicago (original, confirmed)

After the 16-16 regular season, the Sky went 8-2 in the playoffs to emerge victorious, and guard/forward Kahleah Copper (1.7 WS) was voted the playoff MVP. However, she finished behind G Courtney Vandersloot (1.9) and F/C Candace Parker (1.8) in terms of value. When we adjust to WS/48, it’s Parker who comes out on top (.221, .216 for Vandersloot, and .204 for Copper). Does any of that really matter here?

It’s all so close: how do we decide? Well, Copper had the best postseason Defensive Rating of the trio—with the best Offensive Rating as well, interestingly enough (correlation?). Seems to muddy the statistical waters just enough that we will confirm her vote win. It’s splitting sabermetric hairs, so why not just default to the contemporary judgment? Indeed.