Here’s a sight the Mercury’s WNBA playoff opponents have come to dread: Alyssa Thomas operating at the top of the key, ready to initiate an inverted pick-and-roll. Give up too much space, and Thomas bulldozes her way to the rim. (She put the Lynx’ Alanna Smith in the spin cycle in Game 4 of the semifinals.) Attempt to stop her drive, and Thomas dishes to an open sharpshooter. (Hello, Sami Whitcomb and DeWanna Bonner.)
With her all-around game, Thomas engendered some MVP consideration and has keyed Phoenix’s first trip to the WNBA finals since 2021. For as good as she is, though, Thomas isn’t always talked about to the same degree as the league’s other generational superstars, like A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart.
She probably should be. Here is Thomas’s career by the numbers, her case to be mentioned in the same breath as the league’s all-time greats.
Data via Across the Timeline and Basketball Reference
Alyssa Thomas, the Playmaker
377: playoff career assists, second-most in the history of the WNBA. Thomas sits 13 assists behind Courtney Vandersloot, who holds the record (390). Thomas recently passed Sue Bird’s playoff career assists mark (364), and did so in fewer games (53 to Bird’s 60). She also has a shot to eclipse Vandersloot’s mark in the finals.
357: assists in 2025, the WNBA single-season assist record. She passed Caitlin Clark, who had 337 assists last season. Next up on the leaderboard after Clark? Thomas, and Thomas again. She had 317 assists in ’24, now third all-time, and 316 in ’23, fourth all-time. The next closest “forward” on the list? Gabby Williams, the Storm’s Swiss Army knife, is all the way down at 71st with 185 assists this past season.
9.154: assists per game in 2025, second best in a single season in WNBA history, behind Vandersloot’s even 10.0 in the ’20 Wubble. Thomas’s playmaking feats were not solely the byproduct of a longer regular season.
892: points generated by assists, a WNBA single-season record. To put that number into perspective: The margin (231) between Thomas and Veronica Burton, who finished second in that metric this season, was the same as the margin between second and 11th.
16: assists, tied for the third most in a single regular-season game. Thomas had 13 points, 16 assists and 12 rebounds in an 81–72 victory against the Valkyries on Aug. 22.
Alyssa Thomas, the Triple-Double Machine
19: regular-season triple-doubles, the most all-time among WNBA players. No other player has more than four triple-doubles. Thomas’s 19 triple-doubles are as many as the next nine players in the career leaderboard combined. In more emphatic terms: There have been 51 regular-season triple-doubles in the history of the WNBA. Thomas is responsible for 37% of them.
5: playoff triple-doubles, also the most all-time. Sheryl Swoopes and Vandersloot are the only other players to have one. Between the playoffs and the regular season, Thomas owns 24 triple-doubles, 41% of all WNBA triple-doubles ever recorded (58) in a non-exhibition game.
37: regular-season games with at least 10 points and 10 assists, the most of any forward or center in WNBA history. She had 15 of those games this season, more than Candace Parker, who is second on the leaderboard behind Thomas, had in her entire career. (Thomas’s 37 10-plus point, 10-plus rebound games are the second most all-time among any position; Vandersloot has the most such games, with 62 of them.)
Alyssa Thomas, the Do-Everything Forward
88.4: Phoenix’s defensive rating in the regular season with Thomas, Monique Akoa Makani, Kahleah Copper, Satou Sabally and Natasha Mack on the floor together. That’s the second-best defensive rating of any five-player lineup this season, minimum 100 minutes played together. It was also the best defensive rating for a five-player unit featuring Thomas in any non-Wubble season.
53.3%: effective field goal percentage in 2025, the best of Thomas’s career.
394: rebounds in 2023, best in the WNBA. At the time, Thomas’s 394 rebounds were the fourth most in a single season.
619, 394, 316: points, rebounds and assists in 2023. Thomas is the only player in league history to notch at least 600 points, 300 rebounds and 300 assists in a season. (In fact, no other player has even had at least 600 points, 250 rebounds and 250 assists in a season.)
556: steals over the course of her career, ranking 15th in WNBA history. If Thomas maintains her career rate of 1.5 steals per game and remains healthy, she has a chance to become the sixth player in league history to have at least 700 career steals. (Nneka Ogwumike will likely become the fifth player to do so next year.)
42: steals in 2020, the most in the WNBA that season.
3: significant injuries. Thomas has dealt with a torn labrum in both of her shoulders since 2017 and underwent surgery for a ruptured left Achilles in January ’21. She returned to play from the latter injury just nine months later. She then finished top five in MVP voting in four straight seasons (’22 to ’25) afterwards. Thomas is nigh-indestructible.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as By the Numbers: Alyssa Thomas Is the WNBA’s Best-Kept Secret.
