Olivia Miles Is The Throwback Point Guard Of The Future

Vertical video makes Olivia Miles look good. Horizontal video makes her look better. Her gift shines in context, on the unadorned and unsoundtracked platform that is the next day's full-game replay. What the Minnesota Lynx rookie does best as starting point guard of the WNBA's top team is to understand every option available to her before choosing, inevitably, the right one. She's done well to earn the title highlight reel player, but watch her enough and realize she's special for being a film room player, too. Perhaps that's why this was not something everyone saw coming: the instant stardom, the MVP talks, the Lynx's surprisingly torrid start as they wait for franchise player Napheesa Collier to return from an ankle injury. When Minnesota drafted Miles with the second overall pick in April, it was fair to be curious about the match. The team lost most of its frontcourt in free agency and has lately been at a size disadvantage in the playoffs. Young players haven't always endeared themselves to head coach Cheryl Reeve, either. Since the bright spot of Collier, taken sixth in 2019, the draft has been unkind to the Lynx. Diamond Miller, their most recent lottery pick before Miles, was traded to Dallas at the 2025 deadline after playing sparingly. But about a quarter of the way into the season, with the Lynx sitting at 11-3, Reeve has only been effusive in her praise. The rookie, as Reeve will call her, has quickly earned the head coach's trust, enough so that Reeve sometimes even lapses out of that third-person common noun and into the first-person plural: The team needs us, she recalled telling Miles during a game they spent jawing with the referees too much. We're the brains behind it. Maybe all signs that this partnership would go well were there on draft night, before Miles had ever put on a Lynx jersey, when Reeve offered reporters a lofty comp: This is the first real point guard we've had since Lindsay Whalen.