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The Minnesota Lynx are off to their best start in years, and we’re reaching the point in the 2024 WNBA regular season where rumblings of a Lynx championship are getting louder.

There’s good reason for that. At 12-3, Minnesota is off to its best start to a season since 2017, and you don’t need to remind Lynx fans how things ended for that team. Minnesota won its fourth championship in seven seasons in 2017, bookending perhaps the longest dynasty in WNBA history, and while the Lynx of 2024 look significantly different than their most recent title-worthy iteration (save, of course, for head coach Cheryl Reeve), there’s plenty reason to get excited about them as a title contender.

For starters, forward Napheesa Collier is playing arguably the best basketball of her career, and that’s a high bar to clear. Collier established herself as a true superstar last season and has done nothing to lose that status in 2024; she’s one of two WNBA players to be averaging at least 20 points and 10 rebounds per game (Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson is the other), and she’s doing her part as a playmaker, too, chipping in a career-high 3.6 assists per game.

It’s Collier’s defense that truly sets her apart, however. During her Rookie of the Year campaign in 2019, she quickly became known as a versatile, athletic and intelligent defender, and she’s taken that to new heights in 2024, posting career-highs in defensive rebounds (7.5), steals (2.4) and blocked shots (1.5) per game. Collier, Wilson, and Seattle center Ezi Magbegor are the only three players in the WNBA who are averaging a combined 3.8 steals and blocks (or “stocks”) per game; according to Across the Timeline, that threshold has only been reached 28 times in WNBA history.

Minnesota’s chemistry is leading to efficient offense

As impressive as Collier has been, it’s far from a one-player show in Minnesota. The Lynx are shooting the ball extremely well, leading the WNBA in 3-point shooting percentage (40 percent) and ranking second in 3-pointers made per game (10.2).

With sharpshooters like Kayla McBride, Bridget Carleton and Alanna Smith all playing big roles for Minnesota, this doesn’t come as that much of a surprise. Still, there’s something to be said for a team that consistently generates high-quality looks from beyond the arc, especially when it gets those shots with consistent ball movement that every player is part of, and it’s something Lynx coaches have noticed.

“We’re always a team that has some level of chemistry. This year’s team has maturity with their chemistry,” Reeve said after the Lynx defeated the Dallas Wings last Monday. “They’re smart basketball players.”

Intangibles like chemistry and maturity are hard to quantify, but in the Lynx’s case, they do show up on the stat sheet. Minnesota leads the WNBA in both percentage of shots assisted on (78.2 percent) and assist/turnover ratio (1.69), stats that prove not only the Lynx’s care for the basketball but also their willingness to share it.

The Lynx will have a chance to improve their record against the WNBA’s best

How far can this approach take the Lynx? Their next few games should tell us a lot. While 15 games is by no means a small sample size for success, there will inevitably be chatter that Minnesota still needs to prove itself against the league’s best competition, and the Lynx will have the opportunity to do just that in the coming weeks.

Minnesota will play the New York Liberty (13-3) twice on its upcoming four-game road trip. The Lynx have already beaten the Liberty once this season; one or even two more wins against New York would not only strengthen Minnesota’s case as a championship contender, but would also narrow the gap between the two teams in the WNBA standings, and perhaps hold implications for playoff seeding later in the season.

Photo by Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images

After their road trip, the Lynx will return home to take on the Connecticut Sun (13-2) on July 4. Minnesota fell to Connecticut back in May in overtime, an 83-82 result that most would say could have easily gone to the Lynx. Just as with their regular-season series against New York, the Lynx would do well to score a victory over Connecticut, especially if the teams will be jockeying for playoff position come August and September—which they likely will.