Caitlin Clark returned after missing five games with a quad injury on Saturday against the New York Liberty. Her presence helped the Indiana Fever score a huge upset win over the previously undefeated Liberty, with Indiana coming away with a 102-88 victory.
Clark was the primary reason for the win, as she went off on Saturday, scoring 32 points on 11-for-20 shooting. Clark made seven 3-pointers in the win and came up just shy of a triple-double with eight rebounds and nine assists.
Saturday's performance begs an important question: Can Clark make a run at the MVP award? If so, she'll have to beat out a player who is the clear early-season favorite: Minnesota's Napheesa Collier.
Why is Napheesa Collier the MVP frontrunner?
The argument for Napheesa Collier as the MVP is pretty clear: Collier is the best player on a 10-1 Minnesota Lynx team.
Beyond that, her 26.1 points per game lead the entire WNBA. Despite her high volume — Collier leads the league in field goal attempts per game — she ranks a very respectable 16th in the WNBA in field goal percentage at 53.3 percent, and she's shooting a fairly absurd 44.4 percent from 3-point range on 3.6 attempts per game.
Collier has been an elite player for the last few years, but she's taken a fairly huge leap this season.
The former UConn forward is more than just a scorer, though. She's also the leading candidate for Defensive Player of the Year right now as she ranks second in steals per game and fourth in blocks per game. She's also sixth in the league in rebounding.
Collier just does every single thing so well. Her play this year goes beyond just "MVP frontrunner." It's a valid argument to wonder if Collier has suddenly done the unthinkable and surpassed A'ja Wilson for the title of "best player in the world." Nothing against Wilson — and I personally don't think Collier's quite there yet — but Collier has been incredible over her first 10 games of the 2025 season. It's going to be almost impossible for anyone to knock her off the top of the MVP pedestal.
What does Caitlin Clark need to do to win MVP in 2025?
But what if Clark continues to play like she did against the Liberty on Saturday? Would that give her a chance?
Maybe! But it's going to take a confluence of factors, including one that's very much outside of Clark's control.
The one thing Clark can't control? Collier. If Napheesa Collier continues to play like she has on both ends of the floor, no one is catching her. I don't care what Clark does over the final three-quarters of the season. If Minnesota keeps winning and Collier remains the league's scoring leader while also being the league's best defender, she is the MVP.
But Clark can certainly still position herself as the top challenger in the event that Collier either takes a step back or misses time with injury.
While Clark can't touch Collier on the defensive end, we saw on Saturday that when her shot is falling, she's arguably the most dangerous offensive player in the league. Clark can score from everywhere and the weight she brings to the floor opens up chances for her teammates as well. Clark's second in the league in scoring right now and could easily end the year as the No. 2 scorer and the No. 1 assister.
And it's not like she's a slouch on defense! She won't have the impact Collier has there, but Clark has been strong on that end in 2025, including ranking ninth in the league in blocks per game right now. Don't discount her improvement on that end, even if she won't reach Collier's level.
It also helps that two of her top challengers for MVP likely aren't in the picture. A'ja Wilson might fall out of the race for reasons other than herself, as the Aces just haven't been a very good team. If the Fever finish ahead of Vegas in the standings, Wilson won't have a great argument.
Caitlin Clark has plenty of competition for WNBA MVP award
Then there's Breanna Stewart in New York. The Liberty, even after Saturday's loss, look like the title favorites, but Stewie has seen her numbers drop a bit this season. Part of that is just that with the addition of Natasha Cloud, New York has too many other good players, so Stewart doesn't have to shoulder all the load. The more concerning part, though, is that Stewart seems to have lost her ability to shoot from deep. After connecting on under 30 percent of her 3-pointers last year for the first time ever, the slide has continued as she's hitting just 13.8 percent of her 3-pointers in 2025.
If Clark can play like she did Saturday, she'll end the year as the No. 2 player in the MVP race. However, she needs Collier to take a step back if she wants to have any realistic shot at winning the award, because Collier might be in the midst of the greatest season we've seen from an individual player.