Indiana Fever’s Tamika Catchings wins WNBA’s Most Valuable Player award
After being the runner up in 2003, 2009 and 2010, Indiana Fever forward Tamika Catchings finally won WNBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award on Thursday night.
The news was broken to Catchings by WNBA President Laurel J. Richie through a phone call on Tuesday. However, she had to keep quiet about it for two days, until it was finally made official yesterday night.
Catchings, who led her team to the Eastern Conference Finals last week, was very excited on receiving the honour for the first time in her career.
"It's definitely exciting for me and my family and the fans. The support that I've gotten has just been tremendous. It is neat for me to know the impact that it's going to have. The fans have written me on Facebook and Twitter
this season; they say they are so appreciative of my game. When the news comes out, my phone might be so overwhelmed it goes out of service."
From a list of top five contestants, who were shortlisted by a media voting panel, Catchings received 21 out of 40 first place votes. She gathered 292 points in total to register the number one spot. Last season’s Rookie of the
Year, Tina Charles of Connecticut Sun garnered 209 points and finished with second while Chicago Sky’s Sylvia Fowles came in third with 148 points.
Tamika Catchings has had a breakthrough season thus far. She has been the main reason why Indiana Fever have made it so deep into the playoffs and are now being considered as the favourites to win the conference title. Catching
finished the regular season at the 10th spot in scoring with 15.5 points, complemented by 7.1 boards, 3.5 assists and 2 steals per game.
Indiana Pacers’ president Larry Bird was one of the first people to congratulate Catchings; "Everyone here at Pacers Sports & Entertainment is not only happy to have an MVP, but also a quality person who is not only great on the
court, but in the community as well." Bird said.
While talking about her tremendous achievements on the occasions, Tamika Catchings revealed that she never played for an MVP award. In fact, she always focused to be the best on the court and worked for improvement every year to
help her team in the best way possible. After nabbing the MVP award, Catchings now has everything on her resume except an NBA title. She and the Fever are however only one win away from having a shot at it.
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