Olivia Miles wins WNBA Rookie of the Year

Cassidy Hettesheimer, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Sep 28, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — Olivia Miles began her first pro season in New York, shouting out her family on stage at the WNBA draft. She flipped open her suit jacket to show the names of her parents and her brother stitched inside.

Five months later, Miles and the Lynx are gearing up to head back to New York for Game 2 vs. the Liberty in the first round of the WNBA playoffs.

But before the series began, Miles’ parents, Yakuba and Maria, were there to surprise her with her Rookie of the Year trophy at the Lynx’s annual pre-playoff team dinner.

It was fitting, for a team dinner meant to reflect on the regular season. Hers was full of memorable moments as the No. 2 overall draft pick worked her way to unanimous Rookie of the Year honors.

“I was completely surprised,” said Miles, who was again presented with her award by WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert at Target Center on Monday. “[My parents] kind of tricked me and said they weren’t going to be able to come [to Game 1].

“It was just a special moment on a special night,” Miles recounted. “To see my parents who have truthfully been my rocks through everything, all the hardship I’ve gone through, all the highs and lows, to see them holding something that I won meant so much to me and my family.”

Miles, slotting in to run point for the Lynx, became the sixth player in franchise history to win the honor and the first since Crystal Dangerfield in 2020. Miles is the first unanimous winner since 2023 and the sixth in league history.

A panel of 74 national and local media members recognized Miles for leading the Lynx in both points (19.8) and assists (6.0), the first rookie to do so for the No. 1 seed.

Miles, also a 2026 All-Star starter, broke the league’s cumulative rookie scoring record.

Miles credited the veterans around her for “allow[ing] me to be me.”

Coach Cheryl Reeve pointed to Miles’ humility and curiosity for setting her up for a successful rookie season.

“We operate similarly mentally on how we see the game,” Reeve said. “We talk about if-then-else statements, and that’s our happy place.”

“That’s a computer science term,” Reeve mentioned as an aside. Both of Miles’ parents are engineers, and Reeve herself was a computer science major at La Salle. “That’s how we’re programmed.”

The Lynx and Miles hope the next memorable moment of her season comes Tuesday in New York with a victory that would send them back to Target Center for a deciding Game 3.

“Cheryl says this a lot — when you handle the details, and you look up and the score is higher than the other team’s, you did something right,” Miles said. “If I get an award for it, that means I led my team to a lot of wins, and we’re having a good time. ... Keep the main thing, the main thing.”

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