Sparks' Kelsey Plum making case for WNBA MVP consideration

It says Sparks" across the front of her jersey, but the stats make it look like she's still repping the Dawgs.

The cartoon numbers Kelsey Plum put up at the University of Washington are being replicated in Los Angeles.

The former Wooden Award winner is averaging 24.8 points per game (second in the WNBA), which is 4.6 more than her career high. She is shooting .558 from the field, 9.1 percentage points higher than her career best. The ninth-year veteran is also dishing out a career-high 6.9 assists per game - third in the league - and her three-point shooting percentage is at .407.

Normally when players are asked to carry a greater load for their teams, their efficiency goes down. But Kelsey is an exception that's breaking the rule's ankles.

Twelve games into the season, the four-time All-Star is on a pace that could earn Plum her first MVP award. So what changed?

"Basketball's kind of like a war of attrition. I feel like as a player you just kind of refine things and maybe you don't see it pay off for a while, and then it kind of clicks together. I think that's probably what you're seeing," said the 31-year-old Plum from Climate Pledge Arena on Wednesday, before she dropped 19 points and 11 assists in a five-point win over the Storm. "Nothing vastly different. I definitely spend more time in the weight room and less time on the court. That's probably the biggest difference."

Let's zero in on that last part. Plum said that this was by far her "hardest" offseason in terms of training, as she spent upward of three and a half to four hours in the weight room daily. It wasn't all squats and dead lifts, either. It was isometric training. It was conditioning. It was a series of practical exercises that would supercharge her bursts and ability to play through contact.

Her most astounding stat, after all, might be her two-point shooting percentage - which sits at .671. Her best for a full season was .550 in 2023, and she's at .480 from inside the arc for her career. That uptick is what being able to finish at the rim looks like. For context, the 6-foot-4 A'ja Wilson - the reigning WNBA MVP who's got eight inches on Kelsey - is shooting .513 this season from two.

Perhaps the biggest change from previous seasons to this one, though, is Plum's patience. Take the Sparks' game vs. Portland last Sunday. For the first 16 minutes and 30 seconds, Plum didn't attempt a single field goal. Not because she was timid, but because doing so beforehand would have felt forced.

Even so, Kelsey finished 16 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three steals in a 17-point victory.

I imagine five years ago you wouldn't have been OK with waiting that long to shoot, I said to Plum.

"I would've freakin' had a seizure," she said.

Unfortunately for Plum, all this individual success is mitigated by her team sitting with a 6-6 record. This, after going 21-23 in her first season in L.A. last year.

That was a massive improvement over the Sparks' 8-32 record in 2024, but remember - Kelsey came from the Las Vegas Aces, with whom she won two titles.

After the aforementioned Portland win, in which L.A. snapped a three-game losing streak, Plum sounded off about her team needing to take pride in its defense.

A reporter asked if that pride had been lacking.

"I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but when you have the worst defensive rating of all time in the (WNBA), you tell me?"

Plum, as you might imagine, doesn't "give a damn about all these numbers if we're not winning." To be honest, I'm not sure how much she cares about them even if they are winning. But it was clear before Wednesday's game in Seattle that she was far more concerned about getting her winning percentage to .500 than her shooting percentage to .600.

So right now, as the undisputed best player on the Sparks, her challenge is to be a leader as much as a scorer or distributor. Maybe that means pulling someone aside midgame. Maybe it just means serving as an example to follow.

"I think the biggest test of leadership is showing up every day and figuring out, like OK - every day is a new puzzle. What can I do to contribute to winning?" Plum said. "It's a healthy challenge.

Plum is playing the best basketball of her career. If that keeps up, the victories should follow.

The stats she posted at UW her senior year were straight out of a video game. Nine years later, the console appears to be back in her hands.

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This story was originally published June 12, 2026 at 11:37 PM.