On August 1, in a response to a question from the media after practice, Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve gave a nuanced, erudite, educated—and therefore highly controversial—take on the hot-button topic of trans athletes in sports.
Five days later, after her team deigned to lose for the first time in a solid month, she strafed the postgame press conference with furious F-bombs, matter-of-fact invective and scathing satire, declaring that “every player at every position was terrible” on defense.
And three days later, after Kayla McBride set a WNBA record for most three-pointers made in a game, Reeve delivered a comprehensive, heartfelt paean to the 13-year veteran having the best season of her career.
Asked about when McBride and Reeve embraced on the sideline in the final minute, the coach cracked that, “I wish I was cool enough and I could chest-bump. I almost got knocked on my ass; the ‘hugging’ was actually her holding me up.”
She spoke about McBride choosing to come back to Minnesota despite the high-stakes marketplace that set the terms for the league’s new collective bargaining agreement. “We have a strong affinity for each other; a strong belief in each other. As a coach doing this for so long, those relationships are going to matter ... these are lifetime relationships that you hope are forming and I know I feel that way about ‘Mac.’”
Reeve has been the constant in the greatest Lynx success stories, on the sidelines for all four of their championship seasons while compiling more wins than any coach in WNBA history. But there is a special alchemy in this 2026 squad, reminiscent of her second year in Minnesota back in 2011, when Maya Moore was a rookie and the team leapfrogged from a 13-22 record in 2010 to their first championship.
That 2011 team finished 27-7, the same record the current Lynx have now with 10 games to go in the regular season. Of course the 2025 Lynx were even better at this same point of their season—28-6. But that squad, defeated in the semifinals of the playoffs, was subsequently savaged by injuries to perennial MVP candidate Napheesa Collier and the free-agent departures of two other starters and the top two players off the bench.
Reeve, who officially took over personnel duties in 2024, had a phenomenal season as general manager, drafting a Moore-like game-changer in Olivia Miles and signing a pair of free agents with local ties—former Lynx Natasha Howard and former Hopkins High grad Nia Coffey—at bargain rates that belied their selfless savvy, quiet diligence, and polished professionalism. Add in holdovers McBride and Courtney Williams and, in stunning short order, the Lynx became a team to cherish, fun to watch and extremely hard to beat. The chemistry that has been created—within the roster, between players and coach, and between the franchise and its fanbase—continues to roil, making every game and evolutionary tweak feel celebratory in ways both fresh and permanent, like a wedding day.
This is the vibe Reeve must simultaneously surf and surveil, brandishing joy and hectoring threats. For an alpha personality that thrives on mixing it up, she is increasingly fascinating to watch.
A large part of team chemistry is retaining a generally consensual pecking order. For Reeve this means giving both Collier and Miles—“Queen Phee” and “The Spectacle”—their rightful due in a way that feels both generous and rigorous.
A week and a half before last month’s All Star Game, in which Miles had been voted in as a rookie starter, Reeve set the table for Collier, who had been practicing with the team for a couple of weeks, and eventually made her season debut the last game before the All Star break.
“With regard to her insertion, it’s still Phee’s team. There is not anyone who walks into the gym that doesn’t know this is still Phee’s team,” Reeve said on July 11, specifically name-checking the holdover starters. Later she added, “I think it is premature to anoint anyone other than Phee as the leader of this team.”
Flash-forward to August 6. The Lynx had won their past three games with Phee back in the starting lineup. Before the game against the L.A. Sparks, a reporter asked Reeve about the phenomenon of Miles, who had become a fan sensation and taken the league by storm. Had she ever seen this type of thing before in her long tenure with the Lynx?
“I think at the beginning of the season there was a buzz in the building more out of curiosity for the team and quickly the buzz became this, ‘Spectacle,’” Reeve began. “I get messages all the time from people I haven’t heard from in a long time telling me how much they just love watching her play.
“I think in terms of comps, you know, Phee came in as the sixth pick(of the draft) and wasn’t our best player her first year—a very good player, Rookie of the Year, but didn’t have the impact, necessarily. Maya Moore her first year”— Reeve started to say, then rejected that comp, pivoting to, “I wasn’t here for the entire Lynx history but from what I remember, I don’t know that we’ve had an Olivia Miles type in her first season to be the best player on the team. Obviously she’s not doing it alone. But she’s accounted for so much of our production. And I think her being able to be who she is; her style and all of that, and her game. I think it is just a perfect combination, her timing being here and great opportunity, I mean, it’s special. To have a rookie that is a top two or three player in the league; that doesn’t happen very often.”
Meanwhile, it was inevitable that social media gossip mills would foster unfounded rumors that Phee may be unhappy in Minnesota and planning to leave. The only pretext that makes that plausible is that Phee signed a one-year deal, one that expires at the end of this season, but no other team can sign her for more than the Lynx if she does opt for free agency. Others have mentioned Phee’s unhappiness with Lynx co-owner Alex Rodriguez getting his picture taken with President Donald Trump. That seems like a reach.
What is far more likely is that player-agents, or rival front office personnel, or pretend experts with no portfolio to speak off, are serving as off-the-record sources for willing websites and media personalities who can feed off the boosted media traffic.
The night Reeve extolled Miles to the high heavens is the game in which the Lynx defense broke down to cause a rare defeat. Phee is far more of a factor on defense than is Miles—one is a former Defensive Player of the Year, the other is an occasionally inattentive or languid rookie at that end of the court. But it probably wasn’t a coincidence that Reeve took pains to claim that every player was culpable for the miserable team performance.
The next game was this past Saturday against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, the only opponent the Lynx haven't defeated thus far in the 2026 season. Miles came out atypically shot-happy, missing three-straight attempts with at least 14 on the shot clock within the game’s first six minutes. After the game I asked Reeve if she talked directly to Miles about shot selection under those circumstances. The coach replied that a more typical response is directly calling a play from the sidelines for another player.
There was a time during the heat of the game when Phee got upset with the calls she was and wasn’t getting from the officials. Reeve reminded her on the spot to get her head back in the game.
In the end, the defense re-established its prowess, with Phee on the reigning league MVP A’ja Wilson a huge factor in Wilson shooting 5-for-17 from the field. Phee and Miles both played well, combining for 48 points and controlling the game at different crucial points in the action.
They came to the postgame podium together and spoke with glowing sincerity about the other, rich in detail and sentiment. Asked what Phee’s presence means to the Lynx defense, The Spectacle gushed, “Effort, IQ, consistency, knowledge of the game, experience; I mean, I could go on and on. She’s brilliant in all facets.” Phee beamed, raised her eyebrows, and mock-implored “more!” to much laughter. So Miles added another rave-filled sentence. Phee turned to her, genuinely touched, and said, “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Miles replied—then turned to the questioner and said, “Now ask her about me,” as the room erupted with more laughter. Phee proceeded to give Miles nearly the same level of admiration. The pecking order looks well-balanced.
And it needs to be. For everyone currently associated with the Lynx, there is a lingering gap on the résumé. For the past nine seasons—the past seven of them with Phee on the roster—the Lynx have failed to bring home the fifth championship for the franchise.
Last season, they finished with the league’s best record, 34-10, with the top-ranked offense and defense in terms of most points scored and fewest points allowed on defense. But after dispatching of Golden State in the first round, they lost three of four and were eliminated by Phoenix, with Phee suffering the injury that kept her out for months this year, in the third game of the series.
This season, the Lynx have a rugged schedule to finish out the regular season. Asked about that recently, Reeve said she welcomed it, wants her team to be “battle-tested.” She noted that the team was way ahead in the standings last season and coasted a little bit at the end, finishing 6-4 after that 28-6 run into August.
Not everything is perfect, of course. Reeve keeps saying she wants to use her bench more often, especially Coffey, who has been averaging just 11.4 minutes per game since Phee replaced her in the starting lineup. She also wants to get Dorka Juhász straightened out after a very inconsistent return from an offseason injury. But the right balance hasn’t been struck: A good case can be made both for Reeve not playing the reserves enough and the bench underperforming in a manner that doesn’t merit extended time.
Five of the next six games are on the road; then there’s a nearly three-week suspension of WNBA play while the international FIBA tournament takes place. When the schedule resumes on September 18, only four games will remain in the regular season.
It has been a charmed time to be associated in any way, shape, or form with the Minnesota Lynx, but the hard part—potentially the very best part—is in limbo, on the horizon. A lot of the eventual result will rely on how well Cheryl Reeve engages—and gets her team to engage—the obstacles ahead.
