WNBA Dissected 2023 Week 17: Picking End-of-Season award winners

One writer's selections and reasonings for all the 2023 WNBA awards

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Despite my repeated pleas, the WNBA still hasn't offered me an official ballot in the end-of-season awards. So instead, you guys get to read my unofficial ballot. As always, I'll attempt to follow the official guidelines as far as they're known. Also as always, I promise to continue writing this even if they ever do allow me to vote officially. Feel free to disagree with my choices, but ideally offer some reasons why I'm wrong. On to the picks.

Most Valuable Player

Midway through the 2023 regular season, this turned into a three-player race in the eyes of nearly everyone paying attention. However much credit you might give to Jewell Loyd, Napheesa Collier, Nneka Ogwumike or your favourite Dallas Wing, this is A'ja Wilson vs Breanna Stewart vs Alyssa Thomas in a triple-threat title fight.

All three of them have had genuinely outstanding seasons, and if you're picking any of them as your MVP, I don't have a problem with your choice. Reigning MVP Wilson outperformed her season from a year ago, upping her efficiency offensively while playing a key role at the heart of a significantly improved defense. Only her 3-point shooting took a step back - because she largely stopped taking them - but everything else was either similar or even more exceptional than in the past. Stewart - who was my pick last year just ahead of Wilson - has switched teams and not missed a beat. Obviously there were multiple other changes on both sides, but Seattle went from 22-14 with her to 11-29 without, while the Liberty leapt from 16-20 to 32-8. It's not a coincidence. Her efficiency inside isn't quite at the levels of Wilson, but her outside shooting and off-the-dribble creation compensate considerably. She's also at the heart of a defense that eventually came close to rivaling the Aces statistically, even if it took the Liberty a while to get there. Then there's Thomas, the league's triple-double machine, who's the driving force behind the Connecticut Sun. A month into the season, with Thomas moments away from completing her first triple-double of the season and the Sun going to 10-3, they lost their second-best player Brionna Jones to a season-ending injury. That slid Thomas into something approximating a point-center role, and the Sun kept winning. Thomas may not have the scoring production of Wilson or Stewart, but you dread to think where Connecticut might've been without her. Sun head coach Stephanie White certainly seemed to, as Thomas barely rested for most of the season, despite her heavy workload at both ends of the floor.

Photo Credit: Chris Poss

The word 'valuable' always complicates this award, in every sport and league that uses the term. This isn't supposed to be just about who had the most outstanding season - although obviously that's going to play a big part - but who was most valuable to their team. It's also why it's hard to win the trophy on a mediocre team, and virtually impossible to do it on bad ones - the team could've lost anyway without you, so how valuable could you have been? Wilson and Stewart were both on supposed 'superteams', which could be argued as marks against them in 'value'. Could the squads have survived and produced good records even without them, or if they'd been replaced by a hypothetical average fill-in player? However, especially early in the season, the Liberty leaned heavily on Stewart when they were struggling to find chemistry and Jonquel Jones was a shadow of her former-MVP self. Their pure talent level likely would've kept their record ticking over, but Stewart was the one they kept tossing the ball to when they needed buckets. We don't really know how well Las Vegas could handle being without Wilson, because she never misses games. Especially considering that Candace Parker missed over half the season, it certainly seems like they'd have been considerably damaged by losing Wilson. Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum are a scary perimeter trio, but defenses would've happily ignored the remaining Aces bigs to focus on those three and they would've had a lot less space to work with.

All of that said, value is where Thomas looks particularly crucial. The first player ever to lead the league in total rebounds and total assists, she became the pivotal hub for everything for the Sun even more after Jones's injury. Her fluidity defensively is also what allowed Connecticut to shift smaller and replace Jones in the starting lineup with wing Rebecca Allen, rather than needing to put in a true center. Reed-thin DeWanna Bonner was the only player in their regular five listed taller than 6-foot-2, but the Sun still finished as statistically the second-best defense in the league. While the Sun have enough talent that they might've still made the playoffs without Thomas, this would've had to become a completely different basketball team without her.

Ultimately, I don't think there's a wrong answer here. Which sounds silly, given that I'm about to give my answer, which obviously in my opinion I feel is 'right'. But all three of these players were absolutely exceptional this year, and all three of their teams would've had to adapt significantly to survive without them. But my pick is Thomas. On a team that lost a vital piece early in the year, she dragged them along at both ends of the floor, playing virtually every minute. She's doing things that no one else has done, combining interior play with on-ball creation and distribution (and no one even mentions that she essentially can't shoot, which obviously isn't a positive attribute, but somehow makes what she does achieve even more incredible). Wilson edges out Stewart for my No. 2 spot partly because of her exceptional efficiency this year, and partly because I think the Aces would've been more lost without her than the Liberty without Stewart (back to that 'value' thing again). But this is a toss-up, as long as you can find a three-sided coin.

All-WNBA Teams

Makes sense to talk about this here, given we were just talking about the best players in the league this year. As of last season, All-WNBA teams no longer have to be chosen in the guard-guard-forward-forward-center format and can now be picked without worrying about position. While I liked a little bit of structure and forcing voters to spread their choices among different types of players, at least this means less fudging. Because voters essentially broke the rules, and then the league broke their own rules, under the GGFFC format. Now there's no need.

Obviously Stewart, Wilson and Thomas are all in the first-team, for all the reasons mentioned above. I lean a little more towards simple most-exceptional performance for All-WNBA teams - there's no 'valuable' in the name of this award, after all - but those three are automatic picks whether on pure performance or on value. Then things get complicated. I made what I felt was a relatively picky shortlist of possible options, and ended up with 17 names. So I'd have been making a difficult couple of cuts even if we went to a third team like the NBA, which the WNBA is yet to do. Only two teams means some tough choices.

While there are grey areas, on a certain level you have to decide which kind of player you feel deserves the greater recognition. When you've produced on the court while surrounded by other top talents, usually winning plenty of games, have you had a better season than the star who didn't have much help and produced anyway, often while doing a lot more losing? Players like Napheesa Collier, Nneka Ogwumike and Jewell Loyd all had great years, but with limited teams around them that finished under .500. Sabrina Ionescu, Courtney Vandersloot, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young were on dominant squads that meant defenses had to pay a lot more attention to their teammates, but played exceptional roles in a lot more victories. Without listing all 17, several others fell somewhere in between.

I use the numbers for these decisions, but try to avoid becoming a slave to them. A lot of advanced numbers love Aliyah Boston, for example, thanks to her remarkable efficiency, or would have Kelsey Plum higher than I have her this season. On some level, the eye-test also has to come into play, especially when you watch virtually every game. Otherwise, we may as well come up with a catch-all stat and give first-team to the top five, second team to the next five, and be done with it.

I was trying to split hairs between Las Vegas teammates Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young for a spot on the first team. Gray is the ball-handling leader and crunch-time go-to option alongside Wilson, while Young has taken her scoring to another level this season and has greater impact at the defensive end than Gray. Then I realised that there's no one I want to put on the first team ahead of either of them, so I stopped trying to separate them. Yes, three Aces on the first team seems excessive, especially after they faded back towards the pack a little in the second half of the season. I still have those two fractionally ahead of the alternative options.

Second team is where I have the great performers on mediocre-to-bad teams. Loyd, Collier and Ogwumike all make it in here after impressive seasons, joined by Satou Sabally after her breakout finally-healthy-so-we-could-see-how-good-she-really-is year in Dallas, and Sabrina Ionescu for her electric offensive production in New York. Honourable mentions go to everyone else already brought up in this section, plus Kahleah Copper, Brittney Griner, Allisha Gray, DeWanna Bonner, Arike Ogunbowale and Brittney Sykes.

Rookie of the Year/All-Rookie Team

Well, Rookie of the Year is ludicrously easy, as it's looked like being since the first week or two of the season. Aliyah Boston has put up numbers that have barely been seen before from a rookie, given the Indiana Fever a level of hope they haven't had in years, and generally looked like the true No. 1 pick she was always expected to be. There is still a leap from her we need to see in future years - as I wrote multiple times during the year, I want her to take control of games more and force the action, upping her usage rate significantly in the process. She also needs to help improve Indiana's team defense, which remains poor. But all that can wait. For now, she's the runaway Rookie of the Year, and barring a homer vote in Minnesota will likely be the first unanimous winner since Wilson in 2018.

Diamond Miller was the other real success story from this class, and the only other performer who already shows true star potential. The numbers weren't great - 40.3% from the field, 30.7% from three - but they were a solid start. The athleticism, on-ball creation and length showed possibilities for development into a rare talent, as did the basic improvements over the course of the season. Early in the year she was driving into dead ends, finding herself surrounded by traffic and getting repeatedly blocked. All of that improved as the year wore on and she learned what she needed to do in the pros, and listened to Cheryl Reeve. There's a lot of talent there, now it just has to be harnessed and cultivated.

After that, it honestly all gets pretty messy. There was a host of first-year players who had moments over the course of the year, but very few who impressed remotely consistently. Jordan Horston was like a poor man's Miller, showing flashes of length and athleticism to excite you about the possibilities, but with even worse offensive numbers. Dorka Juhász emerged as a very pleasant surprise for Minnesota at center. Grace Berger looked solid at guard in Indiana, both as a ball handler and a shooter. Haley Jones filled in as both a wing and a point guard in Atlanta, and while her offense is a predictable work-in-progress didn't look out of her depth. Li Meng hit some threes in Washington. Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu offered hope as a rebounder and interior presence. Sika Koné and Nyara Sabally both showed enough potential to tantalise for future years. But it was all little scraps here and there.

Juhász, Berger and Fankam Mendjiadeu complete my team, with Horston's inefficiency sliding her just behind her Seattle teammate. But if you included anyone mentioned above, I wouldn't have a huge problem with it.

Defensive Player of the Year/All-Defensive Teams

This is always so hard. We don't have good statistics to capture defense, and those we do have can be misleading. Even on/off numbers can be fairly pointless when teams are playing heaps of garbage time, or certain players are barely off the floor to create an ‘off’ sample size. It can easily become a narrative award, where someone gets the hype behind them in the media, all their positive moments become highlighted, and everything snowballs from there. Which is an unfair way to characterise the year Brittney Sykes has had, but also applies.

Sykes is a rare combination. She is a genuinely good one-on-one defender who takes on the challenge of defending top perimeter talents, but she adds to it with the counting stats of lots of steals and the occasional highlight block that sends Twitter into paroxysms. If a pure perimeter player is going to win Defensive Player of the Year (and she might well get it this season), then it's likely to be someone like that. My issue is that even while having a very impressive defensive season, Sykes illustrated how hard it is for a perimeter player to influence the game defensively as much as the bigs patrolling the paint. Because even while Sykes and Natasha Cloud were still healthy and harassing opposing guards, Washington's defense fell apart for a large chunk of the season when they lost Shakira Austin and Elena Delle Donne. The downgrade inside destroyed the Mystics defense, and there was nothing the guards could do. Meanwhile in New York, for example, with a guard corps in Vandersloot, Ionescu and Johannès that I don't think anyone considers elite defensively, the Liberty crept up the defensive rating rankings to finish a narrow third in the league by the end of the season. I love watching Sykes and her go-go-gadget arms wreak havoc defensively, I just struggle to see her as the most impactful defender across the league.

Which leaves us, largely speaking, back with the MVP candidates again. Part of the reason Wilson, Stewart and Thomas are in that elite tier is because they play both ends of the floor. Stewart protects the paint while also being mobile enough to cover wings and switch smoothly in space when necessary. Thomas is as strong as an ox and has spent much of the year being forced to guard centers, but is perfectly capable of switching onto virtually anyone else. Wilson lost Candace Parker halfway through the season, changing her defensive responsibilities slightly with Kiah Stokes as the replacement and more small lineups where Wilson was back at center again. As a team, although they faded back to the pack somewhat in the second half of the season, the Aces rose up to No. 1 in defensive rating this year after finishing a middle-of-the-pack sixth last season. Considering I held that team result against her last year, I have to give her credit for being at the heart of a much-improved team defense this time around.

Some other players have stood out defensively and have to make an appearance on the defensive teams. Jordin Canada is an absolute pest in Los Angeles, and one of the most annoying guard defenders in the league (which I absolutely mean as a compliment). She's up at the top of the steals standings with Sykes, but when you watch Sparks games you see that it's more than that. She just makes life hard for opposing guards. Elizabeth Williams has had an exceptional year in Chicago as a defensive enforcer, bouncing back from almost disappearing on Washington's bench last season. She doesn't have the size of a Sylvia Fowles or Brittney Griner to scare people out of the paint, but her timing and presence inside this year has been one of the highlights of the Sky season. In New York, on a perimeter that needs help due to those guards whose talents are tilted more towards the offensive end, Betnijah Laney and Kayla Thornton do a lot of the dirty work and frequently defend the primary threats. Laney will be more prominent for these awards because she played nearly twice as many minutes as Thornton.

After that, honestly, my eye-test picks are starting to run a little dry. Cloud will get votes and remains a solid perimeter defender. Atlanta had a good team defense but without individuals leaping out at you. Dallas finished in the same eighth spot in defensive rating that they were in last year but looked like a more coherent team defense for much of the year. The on/off numbers say their most effective defender was Teaira McCowan, and Satou Sabally's flexibility was consistently useful, but the addition of Natasha Howard was key to their improvements as well.

So I'm giving Defensive Player of the Year to A'ja Wilson, as the centerpiece of Las Vegas's significantly improved defensive effort. She's joined on the first team by Stewart, Thomas, Sykes and Williams, because we don't have to worry about positions here anymore, either (although I guess you could consider Thomas a guard offensively anyway). Second-team spots go to Laney, Canada, Thornton, Howard and Cloud, with a small mention for Kiah Stokes. When your offense has glaring shortcomings your defensive value has to be pretty significant to get as many minutes as she does on the best team in the league.

Sixth Player of the Year

It's not been a banner year for this award, frankly. You have to look pretty hard for good candidates, many of whom had occasional good games but otherwise had minimal impact. The award usually goes to someone who scores a lot of points despite being a reserve, and this year there isn't even anyone who qualifies who's scoring 10 points per game. The leading scorer who came off the bench more often than starting is Sami Whitcomb in Seattle, who helped the Storm improve when they finally moved her into the starting lineup. But she scored more points and played a lot more minutes once she was starting, which rather defeats the point of being a contender for this award.

Dana Evans in Chicago has gained some traction for the award on social media, especially as she improved later in the year which always helps your profile for end-of-season awards. However, her shooting numbers are still pretty poor. Dearica Hamby was a nice story returning so quickly from her pregnancy and after being controversially discarded by Las Vegas, but understandably wasn't at her former levels. Both Thornton and Johannès had their moments for New York, as did DiJonai Carrington and Tyasha Harris in Connecticut. Aari McDonald was once again a nice bench boost for Atlanta, although missed nearly half the season due to injury.

While also not quite the player she once was, I'll give the nod to Alysha Clark in Las Vegas. Her responsibilities changed somewhat when Candace Parker got hurt, forcing Clark into a role where she's played more at the 4 than initially expected, but she's proved fully capable of contributing there or at the 3. Also, while the drive of Becky Hammon and the established pieces have undoubtedly done a lot of the work, it's no coincidence that the arrival of Parker and Clark led to a jump in the Aces' defensive effectiveness. Clark also remains a 39% 3-point shooter and either second or third all-time in 2-point field goal percentage (depending on where you set your minimum thresholds). That is remarkable for someone who'd need heels to reach six-foot. Give her some hardware.

Coach of the Year

There is always an array of candidates for this trophy. Do you give it to the coach who achieved the best record, the one who meshed a bunch of stars with new roles, the one who adapted on the fly to keep winning, or the one who improved a squad that desperately needed to find some structure?

I don't think she'll win because the assumption at this point is that her team is so good that the coaching takes care of itself, but Becky Hammon has done an impressive job this year. It's not easy to come off a championship and convince virtually the same squad that they need to knuckle down and work harder than they did last year, especially on the defensive end. They've avoided Pat Riley's 'Disease of More' and continue to look like one of the strongest threats to finally repeat as champions - something no one has done in over 20 years. I'm not a fan of her limited use of her reserves until absolutely forced into it, but otherwise it's been a very good year.

Sandy Brondello won't get a lot of credit either, because when someone hands you a 'superteam' you're supposed to win a lot, but she had to handle the egos and fit together a team where there was only one ball to play with at a time. They've broken the league record for assist percentage, and are heading into the playoffs looking strong enough that many people are picking them over the Aces. You can’t ask much more than that.

Latricia Trammell came into Dallas and has them looking more like a genuine team than they have since the franchise moved to Texas. She was gifted a talented squad that's stayed mostly healthy for much of the year, but she made some hard decisions along the way to focus on her core group and it's worked out well.

Honourable mentions as well for teams being held together through injury crises in Los Angeles and Washington by Curt Miller and Eric Thibault respectively, for Tanisha Wright continuing to build in Atlanta with the Dream, and for Cheryl Reeve winning far more than anticipated in Minnesota.

However, the ultimate choice for this award tends to go to the coach whose team most outperforms expectations. When you trade away the MVP from two years ago and your veteran point guard leader, then your starting center gets hurt after barely a dozen games, but you still finish a comfortable third in the standings in your first year in town, you've done plenty of things right. I wish she'd have found a little more rest for her star players, but beyond that, Stephanie White has done an excellent job in her first season in Connecticut. Of course, they'll now be judged by how they perform over the upcoming playoffs - if they're upset in the first round, 2023 will be remembered as some kind of disaster; if they upset New York in the second round it's a remarkable success - but for now White deserves the plaudits.

Most Improved Player

This one is tricky as well. Did Satou Sabally dramatically improve, or was she just healthy for the first time in her WNBA career? Did Jackie Young get even better, yet again, or was she just on a hot shooting streak that eventually came somewhat down to earth (although 45% from three is barely earthly)? Was Allisha Gray better in Atlanta than in Dallas, or did they just let her take a few extra shots? Has Alanna Smith always been this good and just needed a WNBA coach who wasn't Sandy Brondello, or was this newly developed skill?

Let's start with one where unless it was a heck of an extended hot streak - which is actually always a possibility, given the short length of the WNBA season - the improvement seems undeniable. Jordin Canada now has a jump shot. It's not like she turned into Allie Quigley overnight, but on more than three attempts per game from beyond the arc, Canada shot 33.3% from three this season, just a tick under the league average. Considering she was at 16.8% from outside over the first five years of her WNBA career, that's a staggering leap that transformed the effectiveness of her offensive game. Teams couldn't sag off her any more, or if they did she was capable of punishing them. It's going to earn her a lot of money this offseason.

There's a good chance that Sabally is going to win this award, and I can understand why. She's had an outstanding year, and we'd only ever seen this player in brief flashes over her previous three WNBA seasons. However, as someone who watches at least a reasonable amount of European basketball, I'd seen this Satou Sabally. There's a reason she's been a very well-paid part of the Fenerbahçe superteams in recent years, playing a major part for them. So personally, I do lean towards most of this player having been there all along, and she just finally got to show it.

Similarly with Smith, I may not have thought she'd be quite as good as she's been this year in Chicago - neither did James Wade, considering Morgan Bertsch was initially starting ahead of her - but there's always been a player there. Brondello never seemed to give her a chance in Phoenix (and it's hurt her with the Australian national team as well), but this year in Chicago space opened up for Smith and she took her chance.

To make a long story short, I'm going with Canada. I can see and feel the improvement from multiple previous years. She has worked on a facet of her game and transformed it, which is what I like to see in my winners of this award. Greater opportunity or improved health aren't quite the same, even if it takes talent to take advantage of those too.

Executive of the Year

We can talk about all the little moves around the fringes that general managers around the league have made to improve their rosters if you like, but ultimately this one is easy. A franchise that's been in the doldrums for a while just added multiple superstars and went 32-8. Yes, they were gifted big helping hands from Breanna Stewart's ties to New York and Joe Tsai's willingness to spend money, but the leaps made by the New York Liberty hand this award to Jonathan Kolb. They even tied up key players to reasonable extensions before the end of the regular season, just to wrap a bow on the regular season.

The only debate is whether the easiest pick of this entire slate was Kolb or Boston.

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