Souhan: After a historic season, why not MVPhee?

Aren’t Minnesotans tired of seeing their best athletes get snubbed by voters who favor those coastal elite cities instead of flyover country?

Or, in this case, voters who favor fly-to-and-come-home-broke country?

A’ja Wilson is a great player. In the last week, the star of the Las Vegas Aces has crashed a party that should have feted the Lynx.

On Sunday, the WNBA revealed that Wilson was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player.

Last week, Lynx defensive ace Alanna Smith had to share the Defensive Player of the Year award with Wilson.

I hate sounding like a homer — someone who joins the cult of local fans in thinking that local athletes should be favored over all others.

I’m going to sound like a homer in this column. My apologies.

She led the league in scoring, outrebounded Lynx star Napheesa Collier, has been considered a great player much longer than Collier, and led her team on a 16-game winning streak to end the regular season.

Wilson is also an excellent defender. This is why, as of a year ago, Wilson was considered the best player in the world.

Maybe her late-season surge re-established her in that role, after Collier spent most of this season seizing that particular title. But I think Collier had the better regular season.

Collier was by far the best player on by far the best team in the WNBA. She not only accumulated an impressive array of stats, her style of play and unselfishness also allowed Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve to build an overachieving basketball machine that relies on ball movement and defensive cohesiveness.

Last year, Collier was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. She probably could have won the award again, but she lobbied for Smith, her teammate, an act of generosity that surprised no one.

Wilson had another impressive season. Collier made history.

Collier became the second player in league history to finish with a 50-40-90 shooting line — 50% or better from the field, 40% or better from the three-point arc and 90% or better from the free-throw line. She is the first player in league history to do so while averaging 20-plus points per game.

Let’s wrap all of that in one big burrito of accomplishment: The reigning Defensive Player of the Year was historically good on offense in categories that require no subjective analysis.

If Wilson is going to be given the award every time she has a strong season, no one else will win it until she retires.

Collier was uniquely great this season and might never replicate the parameters of her current greatness. That’s why voters need to wear blinders when voting. Wilson’s past excellence should not have influenced anyone’s thinking.

Wilson helped her team to 30 victories. Collier helped her team to 34 wins, tying a league record.

What’s interesting about these awards is that the standards seem to shift depending on the honor.

If Wilson was going to get the benefit of the doubt over a less-decorated rival who was historically good, why did the Coach of the Year award go to Golden State’s Natalie Nakase and not the future Hall of Famer who produced a record-tying number of victories with a roster filled with role players?

Reeve has re-established herself, over the past two seasons, as the best coach in the league.

As a former voter of baseball awards, I recognize what happened in this case. The best baseball manager rarely wins Manager of the Year. The manager who is perceived to have sparked the most surprising success usually wins it.