While the WNBA’s on-court product has predictably been overshadowed, once again, by off-court drama, it has also never been better. A’ja Wilson, the best player in WNBA history, is in her prime. Olivia Miles is joining a golden generation of young point guards who are changing the future of the position. Two new expansion teams have helped us see familiar players through fresh eyes. After the league introduced new points of emphasis for referees, including freedom of movement for offensive players, scoring and efficiency are at all-time highs. It has never been harder (or more precarious, in the WNBA’s stan era) to dole out awards, but as the basketball gods’ bravest soldier, I will try. Without further ado, here’s where I think the awards race stands at the midpoint of the WNBA’s 30th season.
MVP: A’ja Wilson
Put a hand up. Don’t put a hand up. Double-team her or make her beat you. It doesn’t matter. Wilson is the WNBA’s emblem of consistency and dominance, regardless of the defensive coverage, leading the league in points for the third season in a row.
In the offseason, Wilson made some of the incremental improvements we’ve come to associate with her as she’s built herself up from a lanky and awkward participation trophy candidate to the greatest basketball player the world has ever seen.
She was already the WNBA’s best rim protector and most deadly midrange shooter, with elite post moves and counters. Passing out of double-teams has become old hat. Now, she’s added a 3-pointer, which was the only thing missing from her game. Wilson’s been shooting over 40 percent from beyond the arc, which has opened up her face-up game, and her drives are helping her earn a career-high 7.3 free throw attempts per game.
With three titles under her belt at 29, Wilson finds herself in a rare sweet spot of experience, skill, and athleticism that puts her near an apex that should last for years. She has nothing left to prove, but she still plays like she has everything to prove.
Runner-Up: Paige Bueckers
I won’t go long on Bueckers, because I just wrote about her efforts to become a more selfish scorer. Suffice to say: She’s scaling up, especially when it matters the most.
Bueckers is leading the league in clutch scoring, and she’s powered six double-digit Dallas comebacks this season. The Wings are chasing homecourt advantage in what will likely be their first postseason appearance of the Bueckers era, so every win matters.
In the past 10 games, Bueckers's shot attempts and usage have jumped up, but she’s shooting a touch more efficiently (53.1 percent from the field) while dishing out more assists and turning the ball over less. And while she’s converted a chunk of those pesky long 2s into 3s, which she’s making 38.5 percent of this season, Bueckers has not abandoned her midrange game by any means. She’s just using her added muscle to get closer to the rim, where her newfound strength has given her a level of mid-post pliability we’ve typically seen only in modern bigs (and fellow UConn alums) like Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier.
But don’t forget: She’s still a guard, and she can slice up opponents on the perimeter with a precise handle that allows her to cut through the defense like a Texas Rebel Dagger (incidentally a great name for her off-dribble jumper, which she’s used to create 207 points this season, the best number in the league).
If Bueckers misses any serious time after colliding with Nneka Ogwumike this Sunday, the Wings will have a hard time replacing their best shot creator and playmaker. In their first game without Bueckers, they lost an overtime clincher against the Liberty.
Rookie of the Year: Olivia Miles
I’ve never seen someone so young look so old, and I mean that with the utmost admiration. Miles, with her timeless Afro and her retro goggles, is combining the old-school pass-first ethos of the point guard position with its modern scoring demands. She’s doing it while rarely, if ever, looking rattled. For a rookie point guard, her game has very few weaknesses. Opponents have tried to go under her screens, force her to her left, or deny her the ball, only to get burned on every occasion.
She’s the engine of a top-three offense that plummets in efficiency when she sits. Her IQ and ability have earned the deference of a team that went to the Finals two years ago.
All of that has opened up one of the most electric and varied passing bags we’ve ever seen. Her passes and fakes are simultaneously exhilarating and efficient, setting her teammates up for layups and 3s. In an era when the “generational” moniker is thrown around too liberally, Miles is truly that—maybe the best among the golden generation of point guards who’ve been drafted to the WNBA in the past six years.
She’s an A-plus aura farmer, an MVP candidate, and a foundational piece for the Lynx as they look to win a title.
Runner-Up: Azzi Fudd
This one was close. Flau’jae Johnson, who is now enjoying the fruits of some ugly early-season reps, is gaining on Fudd. But I’ll give Fudd the slightest of edges for now because she’s carved out a niche in a top-four offense while Johnson works through her mistakes with the Storm, who are racing to the bottom.
The best pure-shooting prospect in WNBA draft history is showing she’s more than a shooter. Not that she’s been a slouch from beyond the arc. Since entering the Wings’ starting lineup, she’s been averaging 14 points per game, including an average of two made 3s. She’s also been impressive and controlled out of closeouts, getting to her midrange game and driving to the rim for layups.
The most surprising revelation: Fudd is the Wings’ best point-of-attack defender. Her positioning ability and scouting report awareness give her an edge, but she isn’t just some under-equipped defender playing the percentages. Fudd’s size, speed, and strength make her very difficult to get past, and she’s great at positioning herself for deflections and steals.
Coach of the Year: Cheryl Reeve
Reeve, the second-longest-tenured professional coach in America, has won more games than anyone in WNBA history. Most leagues have a Reeve or two, but the desire for novelty often means that these coaches fail to get recognized during awards season.
A great chef doesn't always get the credit when they're working with the best ingredients, and the best coaches can get overshadowed when they are surrounded by high-level talent they’ve attracted and cultivated. But Minnesota, despite considerable turnover and injuries, remains at the top of the league. Minnesota’s lost four key rotation players to free agency and the expansion draft. 2025 MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier has yet to play a game this season. But Reeve is like Massimo Bottura. She’ll take everyone else’s scrap heaps and turn them into gold. She doesn’t care which ingredients you give her. She’s going to cook.
She’ll take rotation players like Nia Coffey, who was a fledgling at the bottom of the Dream’s rotation last season, and turn her into a 3-and-D monster with All-Defensive team hopes. She’ll revive Natasha Howard, who is scoring more points off layups than anyone else in the league. While the league is running to the 3-point line, she’ll allow Courtney Williams to take midrange jumpers at an early-aughts rate. Between Williams and Miles, Minnesota runs more pick-and-rolls than any other team in the league. Reeve doesn’t overcomplicate things. She just figures out how the ingredients work together and puts them in a position to succeed.
Runner-Up: Alex Sarama
In Portland’s inaugural season, Sarama has expanded the scope of player development by taking a team of semi-abandoned reclamation projects and accentuating their strengths while giving them the freedom to explore their perceived weaknesses.
Sarama literally wrote the book on CLA, or the constraints-led approach, inspired by experts in neurology and motor learning like Nikola Bernstein and Wolfgang Schöllhorn. The philosophy, which teaches players to find the advantage in the disadvantage, forces them to adjust to obstacles: They evade pool noodles while they shoot, warm up by using poles as swords, and practice without shoes on. This approach has been around on some level for years, but no one had fully committed to running an entire organization using it until this season.
The results? The Fire have multiple Most Improved Player candidates. Carla Leite, a second-year player the Fire took from the Valkyries in the expansion draft, runs more pick-and-rolls than anyone else in the league; her one-on-one speed, quick passing ability, and improved shooting have made her a fearsome opponent against any coverage. She has doubled her offensive output as a scorer and a facilitator while improving her efficiency. Same with Bridget Carleton, who recently hit a 3 in front of a bench filled with her former Lynx teammates and celebrated in their faces. Sarah Ashlee Barker has become a jack-of-all-trades; in Los Angeles, she often looked like a master of none. Emily Engstler is one of the most physical, versatile defenders in the WNBA.
The list goes on. Megan Gustafson has started since the end of May after hanging on to the end of the Aces rotation last year; as she put it, “We're a bunch of overlooked players, and I think we all have a chip on our shoulder. You know, I've really never been respected as a basketball player until I've gotten here, so I'm thankful for this team, this organization. They really believe in me.”
Defensive Player of the Year: Gabby Williams
Williams, the best free agency acquisition of the summer, is the no. 1 defender on the no. 1 defense. She has been a perfect fit for the Valkyries, who prize versatility, physicality, and IQ. The 5-foot-11 Williams has the quickness of a guard, the 6-foot-3 wingspan of a forward, and the strength of a big. She can guard every position and optimize every scheme, terrorizing ball handlers in traps and destabilizing bigs with quick doubles. Opponents shoot 31.6 percent from the field with Williams as the primary defender, the third-best figure in the league among players who defend at least five possessions per game. That’s despite the fact that she is taking on—and shutting down—the WNBA’s best scorers, from Olivia Miles to Kelsey Mitchell.
Runner-Up: A’ja Wilson
I can’t hold the Aces’ weak defense against Wilson, who is leading the WNBA in blocks for the third year in a row, especially when you consider that their defensive net rating improves by almost seven points when she’s on the court. As a defender, Wilson is in the unenviable position of cleaning up the mistakes of Jackie Young (whose defense has fallen off a cliff) and Jewell Loyd, who are both in the top five in the WNBA in points conceded as primary defenders. In fact, Wilson’s ferocity and quickness as a rim protector allow Becky Hammon to get away with playing the multi-guard, shooting-heavy lineups that have been a staple of the Aces dynasty.
Most Improved Player: Marina Mabrey
After one of the most uneven seasons of her career in 2025, Mabrey has morphed from a microwave scorer into a full-blown star for the Toronto Tempo in their inaugural year.
At Unrivaled this past season, where her Lunar Owls lost both Napheesa Collier and Skylar Diggins to injuries, Mabrey had taken on a primary creation role that forced her to go from being an off-ball shooter to an offensive engine. She sharpened her handle, improved her footwork, regained her confidence, and refined her reads. That last part has been particularly useful for Mabrey, who is leading the league in offensive gravity and is turning the attention drawn by her logo 3s into easy layups for her teammates.
Mabrey is the only player in the WNBA to get consistently trapped in pick-and-rolls this season, and you can’t blame defenders. Leave her open, and she can get going on a heater quick, like her 53-point explosion against the Sparks, which matched the WNBA’s single-game record for scoring.
Perhaps most importantly, she’s worked on controlling her emotions, using her infamous crash-out jar to self-regulate and turn the anger that used to take her out of games against her opponents. After an opponent inadvertently threw a shoe at her a few weeks ago, Mabrey offered what might be the most instantly repostable quote of the year: “I am working,” she said, “on not being rage-baited.” Me too, girl.
Runner-Up: Anyone? Everyone?
I’m copping out. Sorry.
This is the WNBA’s Most Improved Player era. Between advancements in training and recovery, increased opportunities for offseason development due to Unrivaled and Athletes Unlimited, more players taking offseason breathers because of increased salaries, and expansion creating more opportunities for longtime players to take on meatier roles, the baseline productivity of multiple WNBA players has increased.
Jessica Shepard, who has become a triple-double machine in Dallas, remains the odds-on favorite. But I’m nowhere near willing to give it to her, or anyone, right now. Between her, the Portland players, Natisha Hiedeman, Dominique Malonga, Rae Burrell, Shakira Austin, and more, you could make an All–Most Improved Player team this year (and at some point, I might have to).
Sixth Player of the Year: Janelle Salaun
Janelle Salaun is firmly in the driver's seat for this award. The 24-year-old sophomore from France has the potential to grow into a star who can score from anywhere. At 6-foot-2 with a powerful base that helps her never get bumped out of position and a high release point on her jumper, Salaun is rarely ever sped up, and she’s never met a shot she doesn’t like. She leads bench players across the league in points, and she’s no. 2 overall in guarded catch-and-shoot jumpers. For a team that finds strength in numbers but is missing a closer, Salaun is emerging as a possible answer. On another team, she’d probably be starting. But the defensive-minded Natalie Nakase prefers to set the tone with rim protector Kiah Stokes and close out with Salaun, who plays more fourth-quarter minutes than any Valkyries player but Veronica Burton. So far, the formula is working, but it might be to the team’s detriment: Golden State is plus-32 in the 25 minutes Salaun has replaced Stokes in the starting lineup.
Runner-Up: Sophie Cunningham
Despite coming off the bench, Cunningham is leading Indiana in points and minutes outside of their Big Three of Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston, and Kelsey Mitchell. She’s a high-motor energizer whose hustle sets the tone for the second unit, and when she’s playing alongside the starters, she’s great at making herself open for 3s and cuts. She also functions as a great screener to get Clark and Mitchell matched up against weaker defenders. If Tyasha Harris continues to emerge as a floor general who can lead the second unit, I would not be shocked if Cunningham eventually started. She’s been a better defender (opponents are shooting 37 percent from the field against Cunningham as the primary defender, according to Synergy) and shooter (43.7 percent from 3 on 4.1 attempts, with superior perimeter gravity) than Lexie Hull, her counterpart in the starting lineup.
