Cheryl Reeves and Becky Hammon butted heads on who deserved to win the WNBA's Defensive Player of the Year award between A'ja Wilson and Napheesa Collier.
The WNBA announced that Collier, the Minnesota Lynx star, had edged out Wilson for the award , much to Hammon's chagrin. However, it must be noted that the 28-year-old Wilson won her third WNBA MVP award , thanks to her historically dominant season for the Las Vegas Aces .
Despite Wilson winning the top award in the sport outside of a championship and Finals MVP, Hammon feels her star player should have been the recipient of the Defensive Player of the Year award as well. Speaking to reporters last week, the Aces' head coach made it clear that she believed the eye test showed more than enough to prove Wilson was the clear winner.
"I told you my thoughts," Hammon began . "If you have to go down a rabbit hole of analytics to put somebody in the same conversation, I think you would have the answer to your question. And [Collier] is a great defensive player, I'm not saying that.
"I'm just saying, if you watch the games, her blocks, the way she protects the rim, they're dominant physically, like a dunk in men's basketball. Like they impact the arena like a dunk because she's so physically dominant and there are certain players that I fear defensively; I don't want them anywhere near the play. Alyssa Thomas would be one of those, Brittney Sykes, Natasha Cloud, I don't want them near the player when I'm drawing."
On the other side, Reeve prefaced her response by stating that while she did not watch Hammon's press conference regarding who should win the award, the Lynx head coach believed the winner should come from a team with one of the best defenses in the league.
"No disrespect to A'ja, I know what A'ja brings to the table," her response began . "It depends on what you value when you vote - everybody's different. I know for me, what I value is All-Defensive teams should be riddled with the players from that team. So you look at the top three or four defensive teams, I think in A'ja's case, can you be the Defensive Player of the Year when your defense isn't in that?
"That's completely subjective and that's obviously the angle that Becky is coming from. I'm a huge fan of A'ja Wilson, she's had an incredible year but she can have MVP and Napheesa Collier's the Defensive Player of the Year."
For context, among players that have played at least 30 minutes in 30 games this season, Collier is first in defensive rating (92.2) and defensive win shares (.233), tied for second in steals (1.9), and third in blocks per game (1.4), along with her ability to defend multiple positions. Additionally, the Lynx had the second-best defensive rating in the WNBA, with the Aces coming in fifth.
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For her part, Collier explained what was going through her mind as she won the Defensive Player of the Year award over Wilson.
"I think it's just having that overall aggression on both sides of the ball," Collier said, according to ESPN . "We always are saying defense leads the offense because it lets you get in transition and it lets you push the pace.
"It lets you get the other team on their heels, so we take a lot of pride in our defense and it's something that obviously I've worked hard to improve because I know it's what's best for the team."
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