Minnesota Lynx Star Napheesa Collier Covers SLAM 257
Sometimes, you have to sit back and mentally rewind the clock to see just how far you’ve come and all that you’ve accomplished. Three years ago, Napheesa Collier covered WSLAM Vol. 2 with the coverline “Superwoman.” Just two weeks postpartum, Collier was on set with her newborn daughter, Mila, showing her strength as a hooper and as a mother.
“I’m like a new mother, just trying to figure out life,” Collier says, thinking back to her mindset on that day. “I feel way more sure in myself and like motherhood [now],” she says. “I’m back to playing, so that feels really good. Being around my teammates again. I just feel way more grounded in my life. That time was so uncertain. Everything was brand new.”
Today, on set with Collier—better known in these parts as Queen Phee—you can see a change. She’s now a two-time Olympic Gold medalist, a WNBA finalist, the co-founder of Unrivaled, the unmistakable leader of her team and now a captain for the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game. As we went to press, Collier was averaging a League-leading 24.5 ppg along with 8.4 rpg and 3.8 apg for the League-leading Lynx.
Three years have flown by, but one thing remains the same: Collier is still a superwoman.
You know, last year felt like it was a happy accident. Every year you try your best, of course, but we happened to have the best team chemistry-wise and then we also happened to be really good basketball players. And to have both of those things—it sounds small, but it’s really rare when you love all of your teammates and you guys are good at basketball at the same time. So we kind of fell into that last year. And so now we know what it can be. I think just making sure that we don’t lose that opportunity. This year, that’s what it feels like—we want to make the best of it and make the most of this year.
I think Cheryl does a really great job of putting people in places to be successful. She brings out the best in you as a player, and she knows where you’re going to fit well into the team and how to get that out of you. So she’s really taught me, like, how to take advantage of the things you’re really good at, and obviously work at the things you need to. She kind of makes you look at the game a little bit more technically, and I think that makes you a better player.
That’s so hard because we have two [Rebekkah Brunson and Lindsay Whalen] on the coaching staff. But I mean, Mama Syl [Sylvia Fowles] is definitely one of my favorites. I played with her for four years. She’s just, like, the best person you ever want to meet. So I have to say she’s definitely one of my favorites.
Syl was the first person that welcomed me when I came to the Lynx, the very first day of training camp, which—she’s, like, a Hall of Fame player, MVP, Defensive Player of the Year. She’s like, What’s up baby? If you ever need anything, you come to me, and she just, like, got me in a huge bear hug. I was squished on her. And that’s just who she is. So that was awesome to have her as my vet coming into the League, and now still she texts me after every game day. You know, Good job, or Good luck, or whatever it is. She’s awesome.
Thank you for saying that.
Yeah, I think it’s just more responsibility for the younger people on your team. I talked earlier about how Syl made me feel as a rookie, so inviting. And now it’s my job to do that for the younger people. You see what that responsibility is. This is my seventh season. I still feel young on the inside, but now I have to realize that it’s my job to take care of the younger ones. So having that transition was a little bit harder a couple years ago when it started.
Getting drafted to Minnesota, because you have no control over where you get drafted. And you always think, Wherever I go, you’re gonna make the best of it. But I’m so lucky to have gotten drafted here, and it’s changed the trajectory of my entire career. So it might have seemed small at the time—like, obviously not small in the sense that you’re getting drafted and it’s so exciting, but you have no control and you’re gonna go wherever you go. You have to go there. But I’m so lucky that it happened that way. And when I got drafted here, that definitely changed my life.
I feel like mother is a huge one—mother and wife. I am so family centered. I take a lot of pride in those areas. I’m a family person. At my core, I love just decompressing, being around my family. I would much rather have a night and play games with my family than be out anywhere else.
SLAM: What does a perfect off-day look like?
NC: A perfect off-day for me—it depends on if it’s a weekend or a school day, or Mila, if it’s a school day, you know, she’s at school for a little bit so I get some time to relax. I’ll probably—this is going to sound boring—but get errands done. Getting that done for me is fun now, so I don’t know, buying stuff for my house, or taking a nap is awesome, binging some shows, just doing, like, lazy stuff is the perfect day.
SLAM: What drives you now that maybe didn’t drive you early on in your career?
NC: Definitely my family, my daughter. It just puts so many things into perspective. Like I said before, basketball has never been the most important thing in my life, but it was the biggest thing for a really long time. And so now there are just so many more things that are so much more important to me. And it really grounds you, it makes you see that it’s not so important. Like, we’re playing a game at the end of the day, and playing the game is really important, but my family is the number one always. So whether I have a good day or a bad day, Mila at the end of the day, she’s like, “Mama!” [and] runs into your arms. It just makes everything better. So my why has definitely changed in that way.
SLAM: How do you manage the chaos of everything that the season brings?
NC: I don’t feel like I take work home with me. I’ve never been one that was obsessed with basketball. I really like to do other things in my life. And so definitely, I love napping. I have always loved napping. So napping is number one when I have time, but, also, like starting shows or watching movies, doing things away from basketball, really kind of fills my cup back up so I can give my all when I am playing.
SLAM: You won your second Olympic God medal last summer with Team USA. Does it feel like the Olympics were just yesterday or actually almost a year ago?
NC: Honestly, both. Because when I think about it, that it’s been almost a year, it’s crazy—so much has happened in between then [and now]. Also, it’s so vivid in my mind that it feels like it could be yesterday. But then I think, after that we went to the WNBA Finals, we launched Unrivaled—I’ve done all these things since then. So it’s kind of like that at the same time. It feels far away and like it just happened.
SLAM: The landscape of women’s basketball has been constantly growing and evolving. When you think back to your rookie season, did you ever imagine this would be the reality?
NC: No, honestly. I mean, it’s crazy, because usually change happens so slowly, you can’t really track it. Like, it happens little by little, and all of a sudden you look at where you are and it’s different. This change has happened so fast. You can track year by year how different it is. So it’s amazing to be a part of. I didn’t know if this would happen [during] my career, so to see it happen so quickly, it’s so fun to be a part of.
SLAM: Your involvement in the growth has not gone unnoticed, with the creation of a new community in Unrivaled. As a player, trailblazer and leader within the league, how would you describe this time in women’s basketball?
NC: I think it’s just like such a time of empowerment, honestly, like we hold the most cards we’ve ever held, the most power that we’ve ever held as women athletes. Just the way that people view women’s sports, the accessibility to us is more than it’s ever been, the availability, the way that you’re able to see us on TV more than ever. Like, we still want to make a lot of changes in that area, but it’s better than it’s ever been, and you can see the growth that’s happening because of that. And so, yeah, I just feel like we’re in a time where you can see the cards, like, changing hands almost, or the power the players clearly have the most power. And it’s obviously, as a player, a really fun time to be a part of women’s sports.
SLAM: Building the League one brick at a time, you’ve always stressed the importance of the W being a space to play and to invest. Now seeing the business side, what are some lessons you’ve picked up?
NC: I think you see what happens when you invest in women’s sports—like, when you pay the players accordingly, when you give them a chance to be owners in a league. I think it’s incredible. Just the buy-in that you get from the players, how well it’s received by the fans. You also get a little bit where the League side comes from. Obviously as players, we want to ask for the most amount of money. And you see the business side where you have X expenses. What I do think is there are areas where we could push the boundaries some more.
SLAM: If someone 10 years from now says, “Napheesa changed the League,” what do you hope they mean?
NC: I hope by “change the league” they mean definitely through Unrivaled. I hope Unrivaled is thriving in that way, and because of that, it’s pushed the envelope in all of women’s sports [and] we’re changing what it means to pay and treat women’s athletes. So I hope that we are trailblazers in that way—that is the goal of what Unrivaled is.
There’s still a lot I want to accomplish as a player, too. So I hope I change the League in that way. I want to win championships, I want to win different things, so in both of those areas, I hope I leave a mark.
Portraits by Matthew Coughlin.
