Who deserves WNBA’s most valuable player award?

My postseason awards ballot is due back to the WNBA offices Monday.

My vote for MVP should be an easy one: 6-foot-5 center Sylvia Fowles of the Chicago Sky.

Emphasis here “should be.”

Without a doubt, Big Syl has had the biggest impact on the league from an individual standpoint, on both ends of the floor. She’s been a defensive menace with her incredible shot-blocking abilities, and she’s rolled up double-doubles like crazy, even against incessant double and triple teams.

“I feel like I had a great season,” Fowles said last week. “And my teammates helped me get to that point.”

Well, kind of.

As a team, the Sky didn’t exactly deliver Fowles to MVP voters wrapped up in a shiny red bow.

Fowles will not be going to the playoffs. The Sky was officially eliminated Sunday with a loss to Indiana.

The Sky is 14-17 with two games left and will finish below .500.

Never before in the WNBA’s 15-year history has an MVP come from a sub-.500, non-playoff team.

And, unfortunately, as much as Fowles is deserving, I don’t think that will change this year.

Voters probably won’t be able to see beyond the Sky’s record, and will look beyond Fowles, even though she leads the league in blocks (2.1) and field-goal percentage (59.6), ranks second in rebounding (10.1 rpg) and double-doubles (20) and third in scoring (19.8 ppg) and could become just the second player in WNBA history to finish the season averaging more than 20 points and 10 rebounds per game.

Instead, voters are likely to look to playoff-bound players such as Indiana’s Tamika Catchings, Connecticut’s Tina Charles, Minnesota’s Lindsay Whalen and Atlanta’s Angel McCoughtry.

Out of that group, my favorite is Catchings, the homegrown superstar who spent her formative years in Lake County and led Stevenson to back-to-back state championships in the mid-1990s.

A small forward known her entire career for being well-rounded, Catchings is literally a catch-all. Her numbers across the board are impressive,

Catchings ranks among the top 13 in every major statistical category: scoring (10th, 15.7 ppg), rebounding (9th, 7.1 rpg), assists (13th, 3.6 apg), steals (5th, 2 spg), blocks (10th, 0.9 bpg) and minutes (11th, 31.4 mpg).

She’s also the best player on a perennial contender. Year in and year out, the Fever is one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference and has been in first place almost all season.

Essentially, Catchings has every angle of an MVP-caliber player covered. And she’s got a silver bullet, too. Sentimentality.

“I think she deserves (MVP),” Fowles said of Catchings. “She is very special. She plays hard every game. She never has any letdowns on the court. She goes hard for 40 minutes. I feel like she’s worked hard enough for it, especially going 10 years without one.”

Officials with the Fever are getting so tired of Catchings being passed over that they enlisted the help of former NBA legend Larry Bird, who is president of the Indiana Pacers.

Bird held a teleconference with reporters recently to stump for his superstar.

“You take some players and they’ll have one really good game out of three, but Tamika has always been steady and has always been there every time and people take that for granted,” Bird said. “I don’t look at players who score 25 points a game and do nothing else. I look at players who do everything on a nightly basis and Tamika definitely does that.”

After the Fever defeated the Sky last weekend at Allstate Arena, I asked Catchings point blank if she is the MVP of the WNBA.

She chuckled at first, probably because she didn’t want to appear boastful. Catchings is always the picture of sportsmanship and humility.

But eventually, she did acknowledge that she might be overdue.

“To be able to be consistent for the 10 years I’ve been in the league and to do what I’ve done to help us succeed, then yes, I think I am (the MVP),” Catchings said. “A lot of times people think of the MVP as someone who scores a lot of points. But my opinion is different. I think the best players are the ones who are doing a lot of different things for their teams.”

Catchings would do more if she could.

She’s desperate to help the Fever, the team she’s played her entire career for, win a WNBA championship.

Catchings has never won one of those either.

“I never really go out to be the MVP,” Catchings said. “It would be nice, but I want to win a championship more than any MVP. To me, when you win a championship, that stands for way more than an MVP.”

Patricia Babcock McGraw, who covers the WNBA for the Daily Herald, also provides color commentary for Chicago Sky broadcasts.