Alyssa Thomas, Phoenix's Mercurial Superstar

Alyssa Thomas has always been one of the best players in the WNBA but still considered by many to be undervalued. That changed this year as she's led a turnaround in Phoenix and eyes a title.

Alyssa Thomas is something of a paradox in the WNBA. Her presence on the floor is undeniable, a full speed freight train that can take you to the rim or find a shooter on the perimeter to knock down a three. But away from the game, Thomas’ manner is muted, so much so that she was initially forgotten in WNBA All-Star team pictures. It can feel confusing at times, not just for the 33 year old but for those watching the game as well.

How can someone with such a forceful and unmistakable personality on the floor feel somewhat nonexistent off of it? Is it a failure of the media? Of us as sports fans? Or is there something that is still missing from her story that hasn’t yet been told?

For those that have seen Thomas from her very beginning, as a precocious kid from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it’s a question that even they’re still trying to figure out. But what is not up for debate is this: Thomas is having a career season with the Phoenix Mercury and is now in prime position to get what she’s always craved.

Not attention nor an MVP honor. But a WNBA title, at long last.

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A Quiet Start…

To understand Alyssa Thomas, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. And if you ask her mother, Tina Klotzbeecher-Thomas, she’d tell you that her daughter wasn’t even initially interested in playing basketball.

“She was painfully shy,” Tina says of her daughter. “We had this outdoor league that they talked me into coaching. It was a bunch of five to seven year olds. They had special hoops for them and I signed her up for it. And so she would hang on my leg and I’d say, you have to go out there and play well.”

“Then she’d become a whole different person on the floor.”

But when the game would end, Alyssa would go right back to her mom. It was a constant effort, Tina says, to get her daughter out into the world. But soon, Alyssa would find her way. She played soccer and started to enjoy playing football with the boys outside of school.

“She was the all-time quarterback,” Tina remembers, “She was the girl and always got to throw.”

Alyssa as well as her younger brother, Devin, would play 2K video games where they’d talk plenty of trash and compete with one another. The Thomas family were all adept trash talkers — Tina and her husband, Bob, both played college basketball at Millersville — and getting in an opponent’s head is a skill that Alyssa has now become rather proficient in in the WNBA.

But as tough as the competition was in the house, the eldest Thomas daughter was always ready to meet the moment. When she grew up playing with her cousin, who was left-handed, Alyssa became ambidextrous to emulate him. She grew up watching Steve Nash and the ‘Seven Seconds or Less’ Phoenix Suns. As her star began to rise in high school, major universities took notice.

“When I saw her play for the first time, she was this female version of Lebron James,” says Maryland head coach Brenda Frese. “When you look at just her versatility and her ability to do so many things on the floor and that powerful presence she had.”

And yet, the paradox of Alyssa Thomas existed even then. Her recruitment lacked pretty much any and all pomp and circumstance. The top three schools in the mix for her were Marquette, Penn State and Maryland. Duke had also put in an offer but Thomas hadn’t indicated that a move to Durham was something she was interested in.

Eventually, school after to school started to show an interested. Notre Dame and head coach Muffet McGraw checked in while Alyssa’s uncle wanted her to go to UConn and play for the legendary Geno Auriemma.

“They were all coming in [and] what was happening was she would go to school and the kids would say ‘who’s coming in today?’,” Tina remembers. “And one that’s starting to occur, Alyssa’s like ‘I got to stop this. I’m going to Maryland.’”

She verbally committed to Maryland as a junior and never looked back.

“I had these high expectations,” says Frese. “I wanted her to be our leader. We were kind of continuing to build this legacy for us.”

By the time Thomas arrived in College Park in 2010, the Terps had already won an NCAA championship and made a pair of Elite Eights in 2008 and 2009. The goal was to continue to dominate the ACC and assert themselves as a power program nationally. When Alyssa made it to campus, Maryland was coming off of a down year in which they finished ninth in the conference and only made the WNIT.

Alongside another highly touted freshman in Natasha Cloud, Thomas immediately became the team’s centerpiece, averaging 14.5 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game. The Terrapins went from 21-13 to 24-8, named a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the second round before being upset by Georgetown.

But the standard had already been set and Thomas had caught the attention of teammates as well as recruits.

“I had always kind of looked up to her and thought she was super cool but it wasn’t until I got to school and she became my roommate on the road that I really got to know her,” says Chloe Pavlech, AT’s former Maryland teammate. “She’s not shy at all. She’s hilarious.”

While it showed every now and then on the floor, Thomas revels in a little bit of mischief.

“There’s a side of her that is childlike,” Frese adds. “[She] love to pull prank and have fun. There’s a side that, when she trusts you, is a whole other side of Alyssa.”

After being pranked by her head coach as part of an elaborate ruse to celebrate retiring Thomas’ jersey at Maryland, Alyssa got Brenda Frese back.

“She ended up coming into my office when I was on the road and empowered a bunch of managers and some of her teammates to blow up like 1,000 balloons,” Frese says, chuckling. “And as soon as I walked in and unlocked my door, she was sitting in my chair. She’s always going to get the last laugh.”

Every year, the Terps would finish as a top three team in the ACC, make the tournament and finally broke through in 2014, making a Final Four after dispatching Texas, Tennessee and Louisville en route to Nashville. Maryland would lose that national semifinal to Notre Dame but Thomas had managed to reach that milestone before heading to the WNBA. The collegiate championship eluded her but there would be plenty of time in the pros to try and get a ring.

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The Rising Sun in Uncasville

Although they hadn’t won a championship yet, the Connecticut Sun were quietly becoming a WNBA franchise synonymous with a ‘moneyball’ approach. They scouted well, made good trades and always managed to stay competitive even if they might not have had the full firepower to win the big one.

But in 2014, after trading league MVP Tina Charles to the New York Liberty, the Sun lucked into their next franchise cornerstone.

“She’s always been so versatile,” says Brenda Frese. “When she got tabbed at Connecticut, the engine, that’s who she was.”

Her rookie year was somewhat unremarkable, as she averaged 10.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game. Then, the next year, something happened that altered the course of her career forever.

In the middle of 2015, just her second year in the WNBA, Thomas injured her right shoulder. While a natural righty, her childhood learning how to play with both hands, allowed her to manage it. She traditionally shot the ball left-handed, after all. But two years later, she was in South Korea, and tore the labrum in her left shoulder. It got so bad she couldn’t even shoot free throws.

Instead of undergoing surgery and risk complications with her game, she decided to switch shooting hands. Now, she was back to shooting right-handed. It was a small change, maybe unnoticeable to the casual observer but a remarkable display of versatility from a professional athlete. Unfortunately, it also meant that the world would be deprived of Alyssa Thomas at full shooting strength for the rest of her career.

“I still marvel at the fact that she’s doing what she’s doing without having the surgery,” Frese explains.

“She’s coming down, she’s going left, she’s going right, she’s pulling up,” says former Maryland and Connecticut Sun teammate Bri Jones. “There wasn’t a lot you could do to stop her other than throw bodies at her.”

How well she would have adapted to the evolution of the game — oriented more towards perimeter shooting — is something that will always remain a mystery. But Thomas managed to find ways to succeed even if she wasn’t going to have that element as a scorer for the remainder of the career. Instead, she decided to transform the WNBA and take on a more point-forward type of role.

Her assist averages nearly doubled (2.3 APG to 4.5 APG) from 2016 to 2017, numbers that are now dwarfed by her record-breaking average this season (9.3 APG).

While in Connecticut, she began to make a name for herself as a reliable scorer and rebounder but also a stalwart on the defensive side of the ball. She was named WNBA All-Defense in 2017, 2019 and 2020 while also finishing in the top five of Defensive Player of the Year both seasons.

There’s always been a debate about whether or not Thomas should have gotten surgeries to her shoulders but the economics of women’s basketball, coupled with her own fears about the career effects it could have, stayed her hand. For many WNBA players of the mid 2010’s, playing overseas was where the real paycheck lied. Diana Taurasi famously sat out a WNBA season to prioritize playing for UMMC Ekaterinberg, a Russian league club reportedly playing her upwards of $1 million per year.

With the typical recovery time of somewhere between 9 and 11 months, she told Sports Illustrated in 2024, it was probably better for her career to just ride it out this way instead of hoping for a miracle recovery at an age when one may be past their physical prime.

What’s changed in recent years is that coaching staffs, starting with Curt Miller in Connecticut and now Nate Tibbetts in Phoenix, is that they’ve leveraged Thomas’ elite mind for the game. Even dating back to Maryland, the way the forward has seen the game is unique and can border on genius to some.

“I can remember games where not only would she call out the other teams play,” Pavlech recalls, “But she would be able to say exactly what action was about to happen. She had this ability, when a coach gives you 3 to 4 options within a set, we would call out an action and immediately she sees the defense shift, she knew what was gonna be open almost before a player got to that spot.”

After the departure of Jonquel Jones from Connecticut in 2021, the Sun decided to go all in on leveraging Thomas’ brain power and unique physical skill. Suddenly, her assist numbers skyrocketed from 4.8 to 6.1 per game. That eventually ballooned to 7.9 and now 9.3.

In the last four seasons, Thomas has been a top five MVP candidate at the conclusion of each year. She’s had more triple-doubles this season than any WNBA player has had in their career.

Even after leaving Connecticut this year, she left an indelible mark on the organization and will be in their pantheon of transformational players forever.

“She meant a lot to that franchise,” says Jones, who played with her in Uncasville from 2017-2024. “She gave her all every night, day in and day out. She was, she truly was, the engine of that team. And just being able to play with her for so many years, it’s been a great pleasure of my life.”

As the Sun looked to take their organization in another direction, leaning heavily into a rebuild amid uncertainty with their franchise ownership, Thomas saw the chance to try something new. While there was some question about whether or not playing in Connecticut allowed her the chance to really lean into her starpower, it felt like Uncasville agreed with her as a low-key environment for someone that didn’t seek out the spotlight.

But Phoenix offered more and, more importantly, the chance to continue to compete for a championship while remaining the engine that she’s always been.

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First Rock From The Sun

This season, Thomas will finish just off a triple-double average. She’s set career highs in points per game, assists per game and is right in line with her normal annual rebounding averages (9.0 RPG in 2025). Her true shooting percentage is a career high, as is her assist percentage and win shares.

Early in the offseason, Diana Taurasi retired and Brittney Griner signed with the Atlanta Dream, marking the end of an era that spanned nearly a decade. Second year head coach Nate Tibbetts was now out two superstars but still had elite shooting guard Kahleah Copper on the roster. Mercury owner Mat Ishbia, fortunately for Thomas, is not someone that appears to want to do a rebuild. So a four team trade was engineered in the offseason that landed not just AT but Dallas Wings forward Satou Sabally as well.

There was a new big three in Phoenix and they were ready to position them as the stars that they are.

“I think it was time for [her] to have a change,” says Alyssa’s mother, Tina, “And she was wanting a change. So she goes to Phoenix and was like, ‘it’s wonderful’. She really does love it. She loves her teammates, she loves her coaches, she loves the franchise itself.”

Even as the team has worked through injuries to stars like Copper and Sabally as well as a bunch of bench contributors, Thomas has been the constant. The Mercury play a sort of positionless basketball that relies on AT’s supercomputer-type brain to make the offense go. Typically, she’ll either bring the ball up or receive it at the top of the guy and just start to analyze.

On the other end of the ball, Nate Tibbetts calls her ‘the best free safety in our league’, switching and recovering for teammates and allowing Phoenix to go from a bottom dwelling defensive unit in the WNBA to being in the top half.

A key skill of hers? Not just what’s between her ears, but the ears themselves.

“She’s such a great listener,” says Pavlech. “She’s not listening to respond. She’s listening to hear you out. She’s able to give really great advice. Even at a young age, she was someone that you naturally felt could go to tell her something.”

It’s that level of trust that allows her teammates to let her initiate the offense through her reads. It’s why some of the Mercury’s rotational players, historically journeywomen in this league, are having career defining years.

But is all of that enough? When we talk about the MVP award, is it enough to average nearly a triple-double if there isn’t a gaudy scoring component along with it? Even if not over the course of a full season, even in a handful of games?

“I think, from a voting members [standpoint], a lot of times people aren’t paying attention,” contends Coach Frese. “You just pull a list of stats and think it’s based off stats. And I think you have to watch the game and [ask], ‘are you able to uplift?’”

While the argument can certainly be made for the other MVP contenders, Napheesa Collier and A’ja Wilson, Thomas has elevated the Mercury almost overnight and, in the process, redefined some of her tenure in Connecticut. It wasn’t necessarily just Curt Miller’s vision or Jonquel Jones’ dominance in the paint. It was Thomas, especially in her final years with the organization, keeping the team in contention to always play for a championship, as they did in 2019 and 2022.

Can you reasonably make that argument in a highlights and scoring-centric culture today? Many might read that question and think that there is a change required from the players’ perspective. And yet, Thomas manages to define her greatness by being uncompromisingly herself, even if that means a little less exposure that MVP candidates typically require.

“Her will is to win,” says her mother. “If it meant her team winning over her getting an individual award, she’d rather have the team win than the individual award.”

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The Enigma of Athletic Introversion

Alyssa Thomas is pretty unique in the basketball world. She comes across as generally introverted. While WNBA tunnel walks are filled with some of the trendiest and forward thinking styles, Thomas typically comes in with sweats and a hoodie on. Her personality is generally unassuming but, notably, she’s never been a stranger to stand on opinions and positions that she feels are important. It’s a voice you don’t hear often but because of that scarcity, it means something when she decides to make her voice heard.

How the media treats introverted athletes has always been complex especially in recent years when the attention economy rewards individuals with the biggest personalities. Had Thomas come around a decade later, maybe the fanbase would be larger right out of the gate. But while she may be a somewhat underappreciated superstar now, those in her corner don’t want her greatness to be treated as less-than when compared to the two biggest MVP candidates in the game right now.

“[Her father and I] just came back from a four game home streak in Phoenix,” says Alyssa’s mother, Tina, “And we kind of got to meet everyone. The first thing out of everyone’s mouth was, we absolutely love Alyssa. She’s that fun spirit.”

“We played Atlanta,” she continues. “Bri Jones was already on the bus. She gets off the bus to give us a big hug. Brittney Griner gives us a big hug. And that’s because of your child. I think that’s what makes us so proud.”

The relationship with Griner, in particular, is rooted in empathy and kindness. While writing for the Player’s Tribune back in 2022, she dedicated a large portion of her story to highlighting Griner’s story, as she was still imprisoned in Russia at the time.

It isn’t often, and comes out in small doses, but in a way it perfectly describes Thomas and her character. It’s about the little things, sometimes the things that few, if any see or understand the importance at the time. There’s moments where Thomas is great, on or off the floor, and people might not notice it at all. That’s what Phoenix has tried to change this year while campaigning for her to be in the MVP conversation.

“People love points when it comes to MVP but she leads the league in points and assists combined which I think is a pretty special stat,” says Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts. “It shows that maybe while she’s not scoring at the highest clip, the assists take that over. The shitty part for her is that she’s probably been overlooked her whole career and the important thing is to keep winning to keep that alive because she deserves all the credit that she’s getting.”

To that end, the team has done that. Phoenix is 27-16 and currently is in possession of the No. 4 seed in the playoffs with just one last slate of games this Thursday night. If they win their finale, they’ll get home court advantage in the first round and have a path to the title that goes through the league-leading Minnesota Lynx. If there were ever a time to assert a case as worthy of that praise, it’s now for Thomas.

But even if the title she so desperately craves may not come, those around Thomas stress the importance of giving people their flowers while they’re still here. Even if Thomas doesn’t want the spotlight directly pointed at her, there are still so many elements of her game that are unmistakable and undeniable.

“The game is not easy and what she does is not easy,” says Pavlech. “Because when you watch her play, she makes it look easy. To me there’s also something to be said for playing at this level, at the level she’s been playing at for so long, thinking about her injuries, thinking about her body, thinking about everything she’s endured. And still, I feel at times her game is still taken for granted. I also know she knows who she is and I think those that truly know the game know.”

As the regular season prepares to give way to the playoffs, Phoenix is in a good position to let the world know who they are. And their mercurial superstar, leading the way with a supercomputer between the ears and a pair of superhuman shoulders, gets to let her game do the talking.