The WNBA is well known as an international league due to its short schedule that avoids interference with the main European basketball leagues, allowing them to have access to their major players. If you want to find the brightest stars in the sport, then the Women's National Basketball Association is the place to go.

Three matches between Los Angeles Sparks and Seattle Storm over four thrilling days have provided a showcase for the finest WNBA players of the past decade – all the league’s MVPs since 1999 have come together for these play-off battles, with Los Angeles emerging as 2-1 winners.

The list of all the MVP awards is as follows:
2007: Lauren Jackson
2006: Lisa Leslie
2005: Sheryl Swoopes
2004: Lisa Leslie
2003: Lauren Jackson
2002: Sheryl Swoopes
2001: Lisa Leslie
2000: Sheryl Swoopes
1999: Yolanda Griffith
1998: Cynthia Cooper

Cooper is retired since 2004, but she is the only one that has not been part of this “all-star” series.

The Storm this year signed veterans Swoopes and Griffith after their prolific careers with Houston Comets and Sacramento Monarchs respectively (five WNBA title included), and they have had the Australian Jackson on their roster since 2001. Leslie has played for the Sparks since the beginning of the WNBA, so these play-off games were a kind of historical summary of the competition.

It was a great to see so many top players in a real women’s basketball battle of the giants. The victorious Sparks now meet San Antonio Silver Stars in the best-of-three West Conference finals, beginning tonight in Los Angeles when Becky Hammon and Sophia Young, both candidates for this year’s MVP, will join the party.