At 9.82 rebounds per game, Fowles averaged the most boards by any player in WNBA history. She pulled down 4,007 of them in her career, the most ever, despite not even cracking the top 25 in games played. 

Rebounding, ☑️. 

How about scoring? Fowles made 60% of her field goal attempts over her career, the highest rate ever, and it’s not particularly close. 

In fact, even though Fowles only made one three-pointer in her entire career (making 100% of her attempts mind you) she also leads the WNBA in effective field goal percentage, which adjusts field goal percentage to account for the added value of a three. For good measure, she’s also 1st in true shooting percentage, which accounts for threes and free throws, so Foul-a-Fowles won’t work either.

Fowles was at her (and everyone's) peak in 2013, coming off a season in which she set the WNBA record for field goal percentage at 63.8%. 

Efficient scoring, ☑️. 

On the defensive end, Fowles is third all-time in blocks, swatting away 721 in her career. 

Even when she wasn’t directly rejecting shot attempts though, Fowles affected the offenses she faced - she is 1st all time in defensive win shares among centers. 

Dominant defense, ☑️. 

If you want rebounds, scoring, and blocks, you want the only player ever to lead the league in all three of those categories, Sylvia Fowles.

Oh, you probably want your center to help you win too. Well I’ll leave you with the punchline: among every center to ever play in the WNBA, Fowles is 1st in offensive win shares and 1st in defensive win shares. She won 2 championships and 2 Finals MVPs.

Fowles retired in 2022 but could have kept going; in her last season she led the league in rebounding and field goal percentage yet again. She is the best center ever.

A point guard’s main job is to run an offense and find their scorers for easy shots, which shows up in the box score most obviously as assists. Is Courtney Vandersloot good at assists?

Yes. Vandersloot is second to Sue Bird in career assists, but Sue has played nearly twice as many games. Looking at assists per game, Vandersloot is tops, averaging 6.7 dimes per game, a full assist more than second place Ticha Penicheiro. That’s an extra two points per game over the second-best option ever. 

In 2017, Courtney broke the 15-year-old record for assists per game notching 8.1 on average. 

Then she beat her own record in 2018. Then she beat it again in 2019. 

And then again in 2020, when she exploded to became the first player ever to average 10 assists per game. 

Then in 2021, she once again had more assists per game than anyone else in WNBA history.

If you want to talk advanced stats, Vandersloot also leads the WNBA in assist percentage, which tracks how many teammate field goals came as a result of her passes: She assisted 38% of her teammates’ made shots when on the floor, significantly better than Penicheiro’s 35% or Bird’s 33%.

Vandersloot also turns the ball over less often than most point guards, posting a 2.5x assist to turnover ratio, fifth all time and ahead of Penicheiro and Bird.

It’s also great if your point guard can score and rebound, and Vandersloot can, averaging 10.3 points per game and 3.2 rebounds per game. That's more points than Ticha and more rebounds than Sue. 

Vandersloot is the only one of this elite point guard trio to achieve a triple-double and she has recorded 48 double-doubles, 20 more than Bird and 30 more than Penicheiro.

Seattle and Sacramento may disagree, but Vandersloot does not get the point god credit she deserves. While she wasn’t quite there yet in the early 2010s, Courtney Vandersloot would become the best point guard of all time.

Just looking at her story and stats, Elena Delle Donne as the best forward ever should be an easy case to make, but it gets tough when you consider the competition: Sheryl Swoopes (Elena’s favorite player growing up), Tina Thompson, Tamika Catchings, Lauren Jackson, Swin Cash, Angel McCoughtry, Maya Moore, Nneka Ogwumike, and Candace Parker all played most of their career at forward. Arguing for the best forward of all time is essentially arguing for the best player of all time. So let’s do that.

To start, Elena can score. Her 20.2 points per game is second most all time as of 2022, behind only Cynthia Cooper (a guard). Plus, Elena only plays 31 minutes per game while Cooper averaged 35. In points per minute, Elena tops Cynthia, averaging 0.65 points in every minute she’s been on a WNBA court in regular season games. That trails only Angel McCoughtry, who also happens to have the highest usage rate of any WNBA player ever. Adjusting for the number of possessions using offensive rating, a measure of a player’s efficiency at producing points, Elena is number one all time on offense.

Elena’s elite scoring comes from her efficiency. While not a 60% shooter like Fowles, she is solid from every spot on the floor: twos, threes, and especially, free throws. 

In 2017 she became the first and only WNBA member of the 50-40-90 club, and she did it easily, making 52% of her field goals, 43% of her threes, and 97% of her free throws. Only nine NBA players are card-carrying members of the club, and none had better splits than Elena.

About that 97% free throw percentage: 1) It is the highest rate ever for a player taking more than 100 free throws in a season; 2) It is ridiculous - in 117 attempts, she missed three times! 3) It is not that ridiculous, for Elena. Over her career she’s made 94% of her 1,000+ free throws. 

Three dribbles, lift your arm into an L, elevate, and flick. A simple mechanic that no one else in basketball has ever mastered like Elena. No professional US basketball player has ever shot better than even 91% for a season.

Elena does so much more than just score. She is 24th all time in rebounds per game and 13th in blocks while averaging two assists and the lowest turnover rate of all time. That all adds up to the best Player Efficiency Rating (PER) among forwards, tied with Lauren Jackson.

In her seven years in the WNBA she’s played in 30 or more games three times. The first time she won Rookie of the Year. The next two she won MVP. When she is on the court, Elena Delle Donne is no doubt one of the best players of all time.

And finally, Allie Quigley is the best shooting guard of all time. Ok, Allie Quigley is not the best shooting guard of all time[2]. It’s probably Diana Taurasi or Cynthia Cooper. But, Allie Quigley may be the best pure shooter of all time[3]. 

As of 2021, Quigley has made 460 three-pointers in her career, good for 17th all time, and her 39.9% career three-point percentage ranks 12th in WNBA history. Very good, but not elite. Until you realize that none of the 11 players ahead of her in percentage have made even one-third as many threes as Quigley. 

Of the top 50 players in career three-pointers made, none have shot it at a better clip than Quigley.

From the free throw line, Quigley’s 89.3% success rate is sixth in WNBA history. In her peak Sky years from 2015-2021 she didn’t miss a single free throw in the playoffs; she was a perfect 37-37.

Quigley came oh so close to beating Elena to the 50-40-90 club, missing out by a single free throw in 2017. Two years later, she missed it by just three free throws and three field goals. 

Overall, her career effective field goal percentage of 53.35% is the third best by a guard, less than half a percent off the pace set by Sami Whitcomb and Kristi Toliver.

Outside the live game environment, shooters can really show off - think Steph Curry’s warm up tunnel shots. Allie Quigley has shown off, winning the WNBA three-point contest an unprecedented four times!

If the statistics aren’t convincing you, let’s try an emotional appeal: even though he passed away when Allie was young, she insists her shooting comes from her dad: 

“It was almost like it was genetics. Like he had just passed it down to me, somehow. Passed down this one skill that had become so important to me, and that my dreams and future would eventually become so wrapped up in ... That’s why I’ve known that there was one thing, always, I could count on no matter what: my jumper.” 

Allie’s Dad helped her become the best shooter in WNBA history, agree?