MINNEAPOLIS — The Las Vegas Aces visit Target Center on Saturday to face the Lynx. That means star center A’ja Wilson will be in town to show everyone why she’s the favorite to win her fifth WNBA MVP award.

That also means there will be two MVP candidates on the floor Saturday. Because rookie sensation Olivia Miles deserves to be in the conversation. Miles made her latest case to be considered for the award on Sunday as she led the Lynx to a 108-100 victory over Indiana.

The game was nationally televised. It was a matchup of the top two scoring teams in the WNBA. And the Fever Force traveled up from Iowa to root for former Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark, fueling an announced crowd of 16,505.

“It was weird hearing fans cheer when the other team scored,” Miles said. “That energy is it’s what you want as a basketball player to go out there and compete in here, fans into it, on both sides and just glad we got it done.”

Miles thrived in that atmosphere, scoring 28 points, dishing out six assists and adding five rebounds. Her driving layup while being fouled with 58.7 seconds helped seal the win and extend the Lynx’s winning streak to 10 games while adding to their league-best 25-6 record.

Miles, the second overall pick in the draft, joined a team with high standards. She’s met the challenge of running the offense. Napheesa Collier, last year’s WNBA runner-up to Wilson, only recently returned after missing most of the season while recovering from ankle surgeries, and there was significant roster turnover during the offseason.

Most of us expected the Lynx to tread water until Collier regained full fitness. Miles didn’t allow that to happen, averaging a team-high 19.7 points and 5.8 assists while adding 4.7 rebounds. Natasha Howard has enjoyed a career resurgence because she’s been on the receiving end of Miles’ magic passes.

Rookie or not, when someone has been as prominent in a team’s success given the circumstances, that player should be in the MVP conversation.

“Olivia Miles as a rookie and coming in and everything, there’s a lot on her shoulders,” Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said after Sunday’s win. “And when things go well, it’s a lot of fun. And then when she has moments in the game where it’s a little tougher, her ability to just kind of fight through different schemes and attention that she’s getting, and the clutch play that she made, the three-point play to sort of put us in better position to finish out the game.

“That maturity as a rookie is very, very impressive.”

Besides Wilson and Miles, there’s the Fever’s Kelsey Mitchell, who had 37 points against the Lynx and earned praise from Miles after the game. Mitchell is averaging 24.0 points a game while shooting 50.2% (Miles, by the way, also is shooting 50.2%). There will be clamoring for Mitchell’s teammate Clark, who had an early-season shooting slump but is back to doing Clark things. And there’s rumbling out of Texas for former Hopkins star Paige Bueckers, who is averaging 20.3 points, 5.9 assists and 4.2 rebounds while shooting 50.9%.

It’s an impressive group of candidates. But Miles is making a case for being the second rookie to win the MVP award, after Candace Parker in 2008.

©2026 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC