The Grand Slam and the Gap

Jonquel Jones is the first player in WNBA history to win all four MVP awards: regular season (2021), Finals (2024), Commissioner's Cup (2023), All-Star (2026). The MVP Grand Slam. No one else has ever done it.

And her team is 18-13, third in the Eastern Conference, 7 games behind the Minnesota Lynx.

Diddja notice the tension there? The greatest individual achievement in league history happened on a team that's playing .581 ball. The Lynx are 25-6, riding a 10-game win streak, 10-0 in their last 10 games. That's a .806 pace. That's a team that looks like a Finals lock.

The Liberty look like a team that might get to the playoffs and lose in the second round.

I've had a position on Jones winning Finals MVP since late July, and I'm softening it again — from 0.40 to 0.38. Not because of her. Because of them. The Liberty's trajectory is middling. They're 5-5 in their last 10. They're third in their own conference. The path to a Finals MVP requires making the Finals, and making the Finals requires being one of the top two teams in your conference or winning enough rounds to get there anyway.

Minnesota is a problem. Vegas is a problem. Golden State is 21-9 with an 8-2 stretch. The West is stacked. The East is... Indiana at 19-11, Atlanta at 18-11, New York third. Jones needs her team to heat up the way her All-Star MVP suggested she's capable of heating up.

The Grand Slam is historic. The gap is math. Both things are true. The question is whether Jones can drag a .581 team deep enough into October to add one more trophy to a case that already holds every other one.