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Jones won the award in her fifth WNBA season after she received
48 of 49 first-place votes and 487 total points from a national
panel of sportswriters and broadcasters, the league said, just
four years after she was named Most Improved Player.
"My whole basketball career has kind of been... just coming in
as an underdog and just really working a lot," said Jones, a
native of the Bahamas, who told reporters she "wasn't even good
enough to make the varsity team" when she moved to the U.S. as a
teenager.
Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, who earned the other
first-place vote, finished in second place with 224 points.
Jones averaged 19.4 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.8 assists, as
Connecticut went a league-best 26-6 to secure the top seed in
the playoffs.
"My team mates are behind me 100%, my coaches are behind me
100%, this organization is, and it allows me to grow there and
flourish and I think that's what makes an MVP: It's the work,
it's the opportunity and it's the combination of everybody being
behind you," she said.
The Sun, seeking to win their first WNBA championship, host the
sixth-seeded Chicago Sky in the first game of the best-of-five
semi-finals later on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto and Amy Tennery in New
YorkEditing by Toby Davis)
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