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Ten years have gone by since the 2013 Minnesota Lynx completely dominated the WNBA, going 26-8 in the regular season and 7-0 in the postseason to capture their second title in a three-year span. Minny’s squad led the W in offense and ranked third in defense. Their big three of Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen were all over the League-wide leaderboards for the whole season, where their names pop up across multiple categories. Starting power forward Rebekkah Brunson and starting center Janel McCarville show up in several of their own categories for best stats of that summer.
Head coach Cheryl Reeve constructed a ceaseless system that suffocated opposing offenses. Brunson and Moore flew around the floor for blocks and steals. Coach Reeve turned the offense over to Whalen, whose probing playmaking abilities tore defenses apart. Moore and Augustus could score in any one-on-one situation. Supreme role players Monica Wright and Devereaux Peters filled in the gaps on both sides of the ball. McCarville had a deft passing touch. Brunson was a highly efficient finisher. They ran through everyone and they did it together.
Moore was unquestionably the best player in the world in 2013. Flanked by her whole team, she was shaking her head in apparent disagreement when she accepted the Finals MVP.
“The most valuable players are standing right behind me,” she went on to say. “I just can’t take this myself. The way this team has battled all year together has been unbelievable. This is the all-defense first team. These are the most valuable players. All of them behind [me] have just, night in and night out, not cared who gets the credit, helped me look good, and I try to do the same for them when I can. It’s just a really satisfying feeling to hold this trophy with this team.”
As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of this historically great team, here’s a breakdown of the starting five who helped them march into the record books.
Lindsay Whalen
14.9 PPG, 5.8 APG, 4.4 RPG, 49% FGP
Minnesota native Lindsay Whalen made it back home to the Lynx in 2010 after six seasons with the Connecticut Sun. She was a complete maestro when she finally suited up for her home state’s team. The 197 total dimes she dished out led the W in 2013. With targets like Moore, Augustus, Brunson and Wright, all that probing she did collapsed defenses with ease. She played with a penchant for the dramatic. Whay loved a good no-look pass. A former hockey player, she was a bruiser, a contact-loving finisher at the tin. She sought the bumps, dared smaller guards to get physical with her and outran bigger forwards. She made the 14th most free throws in the League that summer.
As the head of the team’s offense, Whalen’s bully ball set the tone every night. She was aggressive. Her head was always down to drive the lane. She was gonna get a bucket, whether by herself or for one of her All-Star teammates (Minnesota was repped by Whalen, Moore, Augustus and Brunson at the 2013 All-Star Game).
“To know we’re champions again, unbelievable season, unbelievable group of players, coaches, everybody,” she said after the Finals win.
Maya Moore
18.5 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 3.0 APG, 1.7 SPG, 51% FGP
The aforementioned best player in the world. Up to that point in 2013, Moore had a trio of high school state chips, two college championships, an Olympic Gold medal and one WNBA championship. There was nothing she couldn’t do on the floor at the age of 24. Hit some Googles on her 2013 highlights. She was coming out of nowhere for blocks on jumpshots. Yo, it’s real, real, real difficult to block jumpshots. She was getting mixy, but not at social functions; rather she was mixing the sneakers off defenders with her dribble moves. Her behind-the-back escape dribble was wildly effective. Her athleticism was maxed out, too. Contortionist-type aerial acrobatics were the norm. To think her game was all flash and no fire would be foolish, though. The footwork she consistently displayed in her iso package was near perfection. She very rarely wasted any movements. It was just about a bucket, anywhere, anytime. Actually, all the time.
In the locker room after Game 3, Moore said, “It’s just been a dream to be able to play the sport that we love for a living and to be able to do it at the highest level, and then walk off as champions together. This is stuff you remember [for] the rest of your life.”
Seimone Augustus
16.3 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 2.5 APG, 52% FGP
We’re gonna go ahead and call it right here: Money Mone has the best handle in the history of the WNBA. That one-two cross she used to hit everybody with was dis-gus-ting. A deadeye from within the three-point line, Augustus was the Lynx’s guaranteed bucket-getter. She made the midrange into her very own dance hall. Many, many, many defenders got free lessons in the cha-cha slide.
Augustus made a huge sacrifice with the arrivals of Whalen and Moore. Minnesota was her team between ’06-10. She was easily going off for 20 points a game throughout those five seasons as the steady leading scorer. But they weren’t winning. At all. She wanted to win. A whole lot. To her credit, she shifted her role, delivering when necessary instead of whenever she wanted to. It made all the difference. She became Minnesota’s flamethrower, its secret weapon. In the seven postseason games the team played in 2013, she scored 18 or more in five of them.
“Our mindsets were different,” Mone said after the Finals. “Really focused on what we needed to do to bring a championship home.”
Rebekkah Brunson
10.6 PPG, 8.9 RPG, 1.3 SPG, 50% FGP
Of course, nobody knew in 2013 that Rebekkah Brunson was going to become living history. She was still years away from retiring, but when she finally called it a career in 2018, she had the distinction of being the only WNBA player ever to have won five championships (shout out to the ’05 Sacramento Monarchs).
She may be the most underrated component of the ’13 championship run. She was on scouting reports for her defense, but with all the attention paid to the big three, she knew how to reliably convert their deliveries out of double teams. She was rock solid, a high IQ hooper willing to do the little things that equaled up to the big things. Work the public probably didn’t recognize. On-time defensive rotations and on-target extra swing passes were her difference makers that really only Coach Reeve and Brunson’s teammates praised her for.
“It feels so amazing, oh my gosh!” she said in the locker room after Game 3. “I mean, it feels like this is my first one, really. I’m so excited, so blessed to be able to share it with these girls, with this franchise. It’s just awesome.”
Janel McCarville
6.3 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 2.9 APG, 49% FGP
Janel McCarville was the last piece of the 2013 championship puzzle. She was traded from the New York Liberty just before the season began and got to rejoin Lindsay Whalen, her University of Minnesota college teammate. Though she only averaged 2.9 assists for the year, McCarville was an incredible passing big. She had the signature dime of the Finals. An on-ball pluck during the third quarter of Game 3 saw her bounding down the floor, pursued by a pair of Atlanta defenders. She dropped the rock off between her legs to a trailing Brunson, who finished the lay and got an and-1. It was one of those momentum-swinging moments that deflated the Dream and inspired the Lynx.
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Photos via Getty Images.
