Souhan: Is this Lynx season coach Cheryl Reeve’s best work?

From 2011 through 2017, the Minnesota Lynx won four WNBA titles while making the finals six times in seven years, and missing a fifth title by a couple of seconds.

Those teams featured four Hall of Famers, and a fifth player, Rebekkah Brunson, who should be so honored.

The 2024 Minnesota Lynx were coming off two losing seasons. They added no stars to their roster and have barely played their last two first-round draft picks.

They have one player who could wind up being considered for the Hall of Fame, if she continues to excel, in forward Napheesa Collier. They have one other All-Star in her prime, Kayla McBride.

Somehow, this team is playing about as well as those Lynx championship teams.

Which is astonishing.

The 2024 Lynx have a .750 winning percentage.

The 2017 team, which won the Lynx’s last championship, won 79.4% of their games. The 2015 championship team won 64.7% of their games.

Her ability to meld and lead a team that is overachieving on a grand scale is the reason I believe Cheryl Reeve should be a unanimous pick for WNBA Coach of the Year.

Collier may be the league MVP, but she has valid competition. Reeve does not.

She is winning at this rate despite the obvious improvement in talent overall in the WNBA, which has benefited from the growth and improvement of women’s college basketball.

The only negative that could be attached to Reeve’s work this year is a decision she made as the team’s president of basketball operations. She traded down one spot in the draft so Chicago could draft Angel Reese. Then Reeve selected Alissa Pili, who plays only occasionally.

Reese had a remarkably productive season before she was injured, and if she can elevate her franchise in the future, we can revisit Reeve’s decision with skepticism.

At this moment, to second-guess that pick is to reveal that you do not care about winning now. Which is a strange stance for a Minnesota sports fan to take.

What has made this year’s team exceptional is fit, chemistry and cohesion.

As productive as Reese is, she did not elevate her team, which is struggling to hold onto the eighth spot in a 12-team league.

The players Reeve chose to acquire — Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith in the offseason, Myisha Hines-Allen during the season — have been vital to the Lynx’s improvement. They play the way Reeve wants players to play, emphasizing ball movement, unselfishness and defensive connectedness.

Williams is the point guard Reeve has been searching for since Lindsay Whalen retired. Smith is a versatile “big” who protects the rim and, like Collier, can defend all over the court.

Hines-Allen played on a championship team in Washington. She made an immediate impact with the Lynx. Has she figured out why Minnesota is winning?

Hines-Allen said the Lynx “are playing for each other,” communicate well and hang out off the court. “A lot of times, when you’re always together, you want to go to your room and be by yourself,” she said. “Not this team. We hang out and build that chemistry and it translates on the court.”

The Lynx have overachieved all season. Now comes the hard part: four games in seven days, with the second seed on the line.

After they play Chicago on Friday night at Target Center, the Lynx travel to play first-place New York, then third-place Connecticut, before finishing the season at home against Los Angeles on Thursday.

The Lynx have a one-game lead over Connecticut for the league’s second seed.

The second seed is important because the third seed will likely have to play Caitlin Clark and the surging Indiana Fever in the first round, and then may have to play on the road in the second round.

There is a catch to overachieving: You wind up playing teams more talented than you in big games and series.

That’s about to happen for the Lynx — at New York, at Connecticut and probably in the playoffs.