WNBA MVP Front-runners by the numbers

Last week, espnW commented on front-runners for this season’s WNBA Most Valuable Player. They identified six players who have stood out in the first half of the season and are making a strong case for MVP. We took a look at how each of these player’s stats are backing up their MVP campaigns, and how they stack up against each other.

Specifically, we have broken down how each of the six players (Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart, Chiney Ogwumike, Diana Taurasi, Liz Cambage, and Candace Parker) have performed so far this season in scoring, offensive, and defensive rebounding from both a counting and efficiency statistics perspective.

Points and Scoring Efficiency

The below graph breaks down how each player has contributed to their respective team’s points by both the number of points they score per game, and their points scored per scoring attempt.

Of the six players, Breanna Stewart is the leader in points per game, averaging 22.2 so far this season for the Seattle Storm. In fact, she is leading the league in both points per game and total points on the season. She also comes in second among the MVP front-runners in efficiency, scoring 1.28 points per scoring attempt. Interestingly, despite having the lowest points per game (15.3), Chiney Ogwumike leads all six players in efficiency with 1.29 points per scoring attempt. This places her fourth in the league (among players with at least 200 total possessions this season and with a usage rate greater than 15 percent). Stewart comes in right behind her at fifth in the league, and Diana Taurasi and Liz Cambage come in close behind at sixth and eighth, respectively.

Defensive Rebounding

For defensive boards, we looked at both the number of defensive rebounds collected per game for each player, and their defensive rebounding rate, or the percentage of available defensive rebounds that they corral.

Here, Liz Cambage has performed exceptionally and separates herself from the pack. Her 8.1 defensive rebounds per game ranks her second in the league, and her defensive rebounding rate of 29.0% also ranks second (among players with more than 200 total possessions). Stewart’s 6.7 defensive boards per game place her 4th in the league, and her defensive rebounding rate of 24.0% rounds out the top ten in the league (among players with more than 200 total possessions). Candace Parker doesn’t fall far behind, landing in 12th with a 23.5% defensive rebounding rate.

You may note that Taurasi falls to the bottom of the pack in both rebounding stats. This is less of an indication of her qualifications for MVP and more of an indication of her position. Taurasi is the only guard on this front-runner list. Therefore, we would expect her to fall behind the forwards and centers in rebounding statistics. As a guard, she is lighting up other areas of the stats sheet, including ranking fifth in the league in assists per game (5.0) and boasting the 12th best assist to turnover ratio in the league.

Offensive Rebounding

Similarly to defensive rebounding, we have looked at both offensive rebounds per game and offensive rebounding rate.

Chiney Ogwumike leads all six players with an offensive rebounding rate of 11.8 percent, propelling the Connecticut Sun to the best offensive rebounding rate in the league (31.5%). To put in to perspective just how impressive this stat is, half the teams in the league collect less than 25 percent of the offensive rebounds available to them, and Ogwumike is collecting just shy of half of that herself.

With much of the season ahead of us, it will be interesting to watch these six front-runners continue to build their MVP cases and to see if other players can propel themselves into the forefront.

If you like this content, please support our work at Her Hoop Stats by subscribing for just $20 a year.

Note: WNBA.com was used for statistics data. Data reflects all games prior to this past weekend (July 7, 2018).