Meet the Minnesota Lynx's star players

NINA MOINI: Well, this week, we're inviting you to jump on the Minnesota Lynx bandwagon. And why, you ask? Well, because the number-one ranked team is in the playoffs again this year, and they're looking awesome. And even if you don't a thing about the WNBA, or basketball, or maybe you don't really care about this at all, the Lynx players themselves are just plain fun to follow.

They really are a lot of fun. They're all over social media. Here to explain why everybody really should be watching the Lynx this season is our own Emily Reese, who is mainly just a Lynx fan girl, but also finds some time to do some NPR newscasting for us every day for eight hours.

EMILY REESE: Yes.

[LAUGHTER]

I squeeze it in.

NINA MOINI: But people may not know just the depths of your fandom, Emily. And so yesterday, you kind of set the stage for us about how the Lynx really felt that they were just robbed of last year's WNBA championship title in the finals against the New York Liberty, and they really want to make it right this year. They really want to win the whole thing. But today, we're just going to talk about these players and why you love them so much.

EMILY REESE: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly why I'm here. And let it be known that these women are phenomenal human beings. And I mean, don't you want the good people to win?

NINA MOINI: Totally.

EMILY REESE: Believe me, there are loads of great and wonderful people in the WNBA, which is another reason to be a fan of it in the first place. And I have a suggestion for you-- the Minnesota Lynx. Because this is a team.

NINA MOINI: No way.

EMILY REESE: (LAUGHING) Yeah, funny you should mention. Seriously, they've got big hearts. They've got humble attitudes and just sick talent. There's no diva attitude. They care about each other. They like each other. They like their coaches, and the coaches like them. And that is, I would imagine, pretty much everybody's dream-- to work in that kind of environment. And it just all has become a massive part of their success.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it's always tough when you have an image of an athlete or a musician or whoever, and you want them to be the best person ever, and then you hear, oh, maybe they're actually kind of a dud.

EMILY REESE: (LAUGHING) Yeah.

NINA MOINI: But yeah, everybody seems to have great things to say about these players. But there are a lot of stars, too.

EMILY REESE: Yeah, let's talk about the main five starters.

NINA MOINI: OK.

EMILY REESE: Those people can rotate in and out, depending on several factors. But usually, there's five players on the court, and you got to decide who's going to be out there first. So we will start with one standout star, Napheesa Collier. That is our Phee. Everyone calls her Phee.

NINA MOINI: Phee!

EMILY REESE: It's P-H-E-E, Napheesa.

NINA MOINI: We love Phee.

EMILY REESE: We love Phee. She has been with the Lynx her entire WNBA career, since 2019.

NINA MOINI: Oh, wow.

EMILY REESE: And you know, Nina, how she gets in the zone for a game?

NINA MOINI: I don't.

EMILY REESE: She reads.

NINA MOINI: Aww! Like what kind of stuff?

EMILY REESE: She loves mystery novels. And I just love that. When she was young, her parents made a league for her to play in, because she couldn't get on the team in her hometown. And so they made a league, and the team that Phee played on was called the Lady Warriors, which I love.

And that was just so Phee would be able to play. She's the leader of the Lynx. She loves her teammates. And she just talked about it a few weeks ago on the Bird's Eye View podcast.

NAPHEESA COLLIER: Sometimes you have this amazing chemistry with a certain group of people. Everyone on the team is so selfless. It feels like college, where you have that bond. And we're just having a great time off the court, and it manifested on the court. So it was kind of cool to see that blossom.

EMILY REESE: She is an absolute force of nature, Phee. Because keep this in the back of your mind-- that she is one of the best players in the WNBA--

NINA MOINI: Sure.

EMILY REESE: --if not the second best. But on top of that, she and her husband have a daughter, and she co-founded a new basketball league, called Unrivaled, which gives these WNBA players a place to play together and compete in the offseason, instead of leaving the country and playing in European or other leagues overseas. So, yes, Phee started her own league of teams, just like her parents, which is so cool to me, all while being literally one of the best female basketball players in the world, for real. Anyway.

NINA MOINI: I loved that.

EMILY REESE: Phee is class.

NINA MOINI: I loved the way she said it's like college.

EMILY REESE: Yeah, I know.

NINA MOINI: I mean, who really says that in the professional world, that's what you would love-- for things to be the way when you were so idealistic and everyone is in everything for the right reasons?

EMILY REESE: Yeah.

NINA MOINI: I really loved that. Classy, a class act there.

EMILY REESE: For sure.

NINA MOINI: So let's just talk about, though-- like, how tall is everybody on this team?

EMILY REESE: [LAUGHS]

NINA MOINI: The people want to know. What are we talking here?

EMILY REESE: Yeah, how tall are we talking here? So Phee is 6'1". She does-- what we say-- she plays bigger than her size, which is such a cool thing. Anyway, we have taller players, though. Alanna Smith is a starter. She's pretty tall. She's 6'4".

She's our Australian player, our Aussie. And her nickname is Lan. I just want to make this very clear. Her nickname is Lan.

NINA MOINI: OK.

EMILY REESE: Which will help you remember how to say Alanna.

NINA MOINI: Oh, sure.

EMILY REESE: Not "Alana," which sometimes happens. So, Lan, anyway-- she has a pretty good chance of being this year's Defensive Player of the Year, which is a big deal in the WNBA, even though just a couple of years ago, she was cut from a team and thought about retiring.

But Phee was quite instrumental in getting Lan to come play on the team. Now, the rest is history, because she's phenomenal. She's just really broken out of her shell. Off the court, she's working on a master's degree in psychology--

NINA MOINI: Wow.

EMILY REESE: --which, I just cannot fathom how on Earth she finds the mind space for that. I mean, you've got to really be good at compartmentalizing, I would imagine, to juggle all of that. But it's clearly a passion of hers to learn and just be perfect, I guess.

NINA MOINI: Right, she's probably going to have a lot of focus, like know exactly how to give exactly the focus that you need to every single task that you're doing. Otherwise, I don't know how you could be that locked in in so many ways. That's amazing.

EMILY REESE: Yeah.

NINA MOINI: So we got Phee, we got Lan. What's another star on the team?

EMILY REESE: All right, we got Bridget Carleton. She's our Canadian, and that's a big deal, because there are only four players from Canada in the WNBA.

NINA MOINI: Oh, wow.

EMILY REESE: Only four. And she likes to-- I just love this-- she likes to run basketball camps for young girls in places where they don't have that kind of amenities. She also has this knack, Nina, of sinking these last-minute, super important shots, which is really--

NINA MOINI: Nice.

EMILY REESE: --great. So here is BC. At the beginning of the season, she was being interviewed by her teammate, Natisha Hiedeman.

NATISHA HIEDEMAN: Bridget, Natisha Hiedeman from the Minnesota Lynx.

BRIDGET CARLETON: Mm-hmm.

NATISHA HIEDEMAN: What are you most excited for and looking forward to?

BRIDGET CARLETON: I'm really excited to play again with Natisha Hiedeman. I've missed her so much. It was a long offseason without her, but I'm really, really excited to be back on the court with her and all my other teammates.

NINA MOINI: So I'm getting a vibe that nicknames are pretty important here. I thought you were just calling her BC, but does everybody call her BC?

EMILY REESE: Yeah, yeah, she mostly goes by BC, but I'm making a push here to call her Canadian Cash--

NINA MOINI: (LAUGHING) Oh.

EMILY REESE: --for a couple of reasons.

NINA MOINI: CC.

EMILY REESE: Now, first of all, they love her in Canada, because she does make up 25% of all Canadian players in the WNBA, and also Canadian Cash, just because she's just such a solid piece of the offense and defense, and you can count on her.

NINA MOINI: What about-- tell me about Kayla McBride.

EMILY REESE: Yeah, Kayla McBride--

NINA MOINI: K-mac.

EMILY REESE: K-mac.

NINA MOINI: There you go. [LAUGHS]

EMILY REESE: Or McBuckets is another good one for her-- McBuckets, which I love. And she is just outstanding. She's a really great--

NINA MOINI: Oh, buckets!

EMILY REESE: Yeah.

NINA MOINI: Buckets like shooting buckets. Got it.

EMILY REESE: Yeah. She's great from the three-point line. She loves the Twin Cities. She loves the food scene here. I agree.

NINA MOINI: That's what I thought of when you said buckets, actually. I was like, food.

[LAUGHTER]

I guess we're not talking about buckets of food.

EMILY REESE: Yeah.

NINA MOINI: But anyway, go on. I'm glad you're educating me here.

EMILY REESE: Exactly. She loves Pizza Luce-- also agree. She loves The Dripping Root in Longfellow. Yes, I agree. Her favorite way to spend Christmas Day is to wake up, eat a bunch of cinnamon rolls, go back to bed, and then wake up and watch the NBA--

NINA MOINI: Only cinnamon rolls. Very important. No other foods.

EMILY REESE: And then, I know I heard her at some point talking about how she's a good sleeper and she loves a good nap. So I just-- we are kindred spirits, for sure. She and I, we're basically sisters.

NINA MOINI: I love that. All right. So we did four players, and we need the fifth starter here, right?

EMILY REESE: Yes, indeed, and that is the fiery, gregarious, personable Courtney Williams. She goes by Court, and she-- honestly, I just love watching her play basketball. She's very graceful. She can jump really high, and just-- she just looks amazing when she plays.

And she has blown up over the summer, because she's been live-streaming-- doing a lot of streaming with her best friend, Natisha Hiedeman, who keeps coming up.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

EMILY REESE: And they call themselves the Stud Buds.

NINA MOINI: The Stud Buds.

EMILY REESE: Stud Buds. Yes, yes.

NINA MOINI: Love it.

EMILY REESE: But what Court says about her teammates is that they're some of the coolest people that she's ever been around. And Court is-- I mean, can I say "rizz", Nina? Are people-- we say-- do we say "rizz" still?

NINA MOINI: I really don't know. Probably not, but that's-- let's just say it.

EMILY REESE: We've maybe moved on from it.

NINA MOINI: (LAUGHING) We've probably moved on.

EMILY REESE: But that's her. She just oozes personality on and off the court, and she's funny. She's very, very funny. And she's just a big fan of her teammates.

NINA MOINI: Anybody else who's a standout to you?

EMILY REESE: We will leave it with Natisha Hiedeman, who's come up a couple of times.

NINA MOINI: That's right!

EMILY REESE: She's the other half of the Stud Buds. She goes by T, which helps you how to say Natisha. And she and Court have been best friends for many years. But T-- she's from Green Bay. She's a Sconnie.

NINA MOINI: OK.

EMILY REESE: Crazy. She went to Marquette, and she has had an outstanding season this year. She really blew up at the end of the season with multiple games scoring more than 20 points. And I'm telling you, I just love these-- I love these people.

NINA MOINI: I think we all want to be loved the way you love the Lynx. Emily Reese, thank you so much for helping us get on the Lynx bandwagon here. And you are going to tell us tomorrow more about the Stud Buds. I'm excited to hear about that. And that'll be in advance of very exciting game two in the playoffs, coming up. Thank you, Emily Reese.

EMILY REESE: Thanks, Nina.