Olivia Miles is the clear frontrunner for Rookie of the Year, and most of the case for her rests on what she does with the ball in her hands. WNBA analysts Annie Costabile and Sabreena Merchant think that’s only half the story. For the Minnesota Lynx, they argue, it’s her defense that the team genuinely cannot function without.
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“I can’t believe I’m saying this, even as a foremost Olivia Miles defender, three months ago, I never would have believed that a team’s defense would be this much worse without Olivia Miles on the court,” Merchant said in the July 10 episode of No Offseason: The Athletic Women’s Basketball Show.
“There’s these blow-bys at the point of attack, you know, Leïla Lacan getting to the rack. Obviously, athletic guards and Rivers getting to the rack, but I think they kind of miss Olivia Miles and like the way she defends too.”
That admission carries weight given where it’s coming from. Merchant has followed Miles closely since her TCU days, however, even she didn’t see this coming.
“So their defensive rating with Olivia on the floor is first in the league. Without her, they dropped to 12th,” Costabile added. “It’s such a small sample size, only two games. And that’s the other thing too is like, what is her absence going to look like against, you know, stronger opponents?”
The question isn’t hypothetical anymore. Miles strained her calf during Minnesota’s July 3 loss to the Liberty. She sat out the next game against Connecticut on July 6, a game the Lynx lost, and missed the rematch two days later, which Minnesota won. The split result is exactly the kind of sample size Costabile flagged, a loss and win without her. Not nearly enough games to draw firm conclusion but enough to notice something changed.
The numbers back up why analysts are paying attention. Miles is averaging 18.5 points, 5.7 assists, 4.8 rebounds, 1.4 steals, and 0.8 blocks a game, shooting better than 50% from the field, the profile of a legitimate two-way rookie rather than just a scorer learning to facilitate.
Her advanced numbers tell a similar story. Miles carries a defensive rating in the high 90s and a strongly positive net rating whenever she’s on the floor, with the Lynx looking like one of the league’s most balanced teams in her minutes. That defensive impact sits right alongside her offensive load, where she already leads Minnesota in scoring ahead of established veterans like Natasha Howard and Courtney Williams.
The Lynx have ridden that combination to a share of the best record in the league, and they look built for a real playoff run.
The Lynx Have Played Phenomenally Despite Missing Napheesa Collier
It’s rare to watch a team miss its MVP-caliber franchise player for this long and still be a title contender. Minnesota has done exactly that. Napheesa Collier hasn’t played a single game in 2026, sidelined from the start of the season while recovering from surgery on both ankles. Head coach Cheryl Reeve hasn’t offered a firm timetable for her return, only that whenever Collier does come back, she remains the standard everyone else in the locker room is measured against.
Miles has effectively picked up the keys at point guard in the meantime, and her value on both ends is exactly why Merchant has floated the idea of Minnesota adding a backup guard off the waiver wire or through a developmental deal, insurance for a roster this reliant on one rookie holding down both ends of the floor.
That question of depth is about to get tested. Minnesota closes out its stretch against the Liberty this weekend before back-to-back home games against Connecticut and Indiana, then a road trip to face the Fever again, a run that will say a lot about whether this defense holds up without Miles at less than full strength. If the Lynx can navigate that stretch and eventually get Collier back into the mix, they’ll enter the second half of the season as one of the most complete, and most dangerous, teams left in the league.