2024 RealGM WNBA All-Season Awards Voting Thread (Voting Ends 11/3 Morning PST)

[Doctor MJ]

This is the Voting thread for the RealGM WNBA Board's All-Season awards. It is intended to be used solely for voting purposes by those on the Voting Panel, until after votes have been tallied on Sunday.

Please continue to use the Discussion thread for discussion at least until that time.

Concept

Basically like typical WNBA awards, except we don't stop paying attention after the regular season ends.

This means that it's an award based on in-season achievement rather than a more abstract notion of goodness.

Note that this is modeled after the Retro POY design on the PC Board, and so some links are helpful:

Original Thread: Retro Player of the Year Project
Last NBA Season: '23-24 RealGM All-Season Awards Voting Thread
Spreadsheet of NBA All-Season Award Winners
Spreadsheet of NBA All-Season POY/OPOY/DPOY Share Details

Note that we didn't begin doing awards other than POY until '14-15.

I would also be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that there's a Retro POY Update project going on the PC board right now, primarily for the posters who weren't around back when we did the original - but also doing OPOY & DPOY which I find particularly cool.

Awards

POY: Player of the Year - analogous to WNBA MVP.
OPOY: Offensive Player of the Year - POY if we only look at Offense.
DPOY: Defensive Player of the Year - POY if we only look at Defense.
ROY: Rookie of the Year - analogous to WNBA ROY.
MIP: Most Improved Player - analogous to WNBA MIP.
6WOY: 6th Woman of the Year - analogous to WNBA 6WOY.
COY: Coach of the Year - analogous to WNBA COY.
EOY: Executive of the Year - analogous to WNBA EOY.

Voting Rules

1. Only those on the Voting Panel (below) may vote.
2. Only POY is mandatory for all participants. Feel free to pick and choose which of the others you want to submit ballots for.
3. Only full ballots will be accepted.
4. POY uses a 5 line ballot with a weighting scheme of 10-7-5-3-1, which is what the NBA/WNBA has used for MVP for many years.
5. All-other awards will use a 3 line ballot with a weight scheme of 5-3-1, which is also an established NBA standard.
6. For any particular award ballot to count, you must include a summary of your thoughts. I won't micro-manage what this will be (can be quite brief), but the intent is that future eyes (some of which will be our own) will benefit from what they read beyond simply knowing our orderings.

Voting Panel

1. cupcakesnake
2. G R E Y
3. Doctor MJ
4. dockingsched
5. theforumblue
6. jc23
7. Ghetto Gospel
8. The Witcher

If you're name isn't on the list, but you'd like to be added, please PM me. To be eligible, you just have to be a WNBA voter in good standing.

[Ghetto Gospel]

POY
1. A'ja Wilson – I hear the Collier buzz but idc, she’s still the best player in the league. You can give her the ball anywhere on the court and she just works. Collier can get her own offense but Cheryl Reeve does a much better job of running various offensive actions and backcuts to get her much easier looks while the aces coaching is basically to give A'ja the rock and get out of her way. Regardless, even in that offense, A'ja is still a monster
2. Napheesa Collier - I think she was the clear best player in the finals, so she goes here over Breanna Stewart.
3. Breanna Stewart – She struggled a bit with her offense at times but her defense is still elite. She's the best player on the best team so that has to mean something.
4. Nneka Ogwumike – She was a really consistent offensive and defensive player all year-round, as steady as a rock for the Storm.
5. Alyssa Thomas – She also does a lot for the Sun on offense and on defense. This spot was between her and Caitlin Clark but imo, the argument for Caitlin Clark begins and ends with her defense (though, she did improve as the season went along) and the first quarter of the season where she was dreadful.

OPOY
1. Aja Wilson – Great offensive player, see POY reason
2. Napheesa Collier – Slightly less great offensive player
3. Caitlin Clark – I'm convinced she's the best point guard in the league. No other point guard can even scratch what she does on offense and she could easily be 1 or 2 next year.
4. Kelsey Mitchell – Might be a surprise pick here, but all year-round she was an extremely efficient shooter and scorer and did it on volume including in high-leverage situations.
5. Breanna Stewart – Off year-shooting but still, she draws so much attention and does so much that it's hard to take her off. She had a pretty dreadful finals but the other choice here for me was Sabrina Ionescu who was probably even worse in the finals outsiding of 2 shots in game 3. Maybe Jonquel Jones could have been here, but the Liberty basically treat her like Myles Turner, perhaps rightfully so, perhaps not. If she was on an offense where she was featured, she probably would have taken this spot.

DPOY
1. Napheesa Collier – Can guard 1-4 easily, very switchable, and guards both the perimeter and paint equally well
2. Aja Wilson – Monster defensive player, slightly less versatile than collier imo
3. Breanna Stewart – Just slightly worse defensive player than A'ja imo
4. Ezi Magbegor – Defensive backbone for the Storm. Elite athlete with elite paint protection
5. Alanna Smith – Great defensive player

with apologies to Dijonai Carrington, but bigs just do so much more on defense than guards

ROY
1. Caitlin Clark – This one goes without saying
2. Leonie Fiebich – Maybe a little controversial and if it ended with the regular season, it would probably have been Angel Reese. Fiebich however was great all season, that went up a level in the playoffs and then again in the finals. Highly switchable defender that plays great defense and provides extremely efficient offense: 62.4% TS during the regular season and 72.1% during the playoffs. She is the gold standard for a modern role player that can fit into every single roster and lineup.
3. Angel Reese – No one can really contest her for this spot. Elite rebounding with very good defense

MIP
1. Dearica Hamby – I thought she really grew into her own this year and I came away really impressed with her professionalism.
2. Bridget Carleton – She found her shot this year and that turns her from a decent role player to a great one.
3. Emily Engstler – Maybe a little overlooked because she played on a bad Washington team, but everytime I watched her play, she was hustling, playing great defense and it looks like she has really improved as a shooter.

6WOY
1. Leonie Fiebich – see ROY reason
2. Emily Engstler – see MIP reason
3. Lexie Hull – even though her numbers may not suggest it, she was great coming off the bench. She played with great hustle and her shooting really improved this year and single handedly won a few games for the fever this year

COY
1. Sandy Brondello – I can hear the argument for Cheryl Reeve. Sandy has a stacked team and maybe the team should have performed better. Ultimately, they had the best record in the regular season and won the chip so what more could you want other than to win by more..? I guess she wins by default but she also did make the adjustment to bench Betnijah Laney-Hamilton to play Nyara Sabally which was huge and probably the series winning one.
2. Cheryl Reeve
3. Stephanie White – The Aces and Mercury underperformed, and you can’t give it to a losing team so it’s between her, Christie Sides and Noelle Quinn. Christie Sides was awful for the first half or so of the season so and between the Sun and the Storm, both teams are built kind of similarly. Poor offensive rosters, poor shooting with great defense. I think the Sun were able to more effectively create good offense than the Storm, and I will attribute that to coaching.

[Doctor MJ]

Hey y'all,

If anyone needs me to postpone the deadline, just ask, I will. It's not important to me that I tally everything up tomorrow, there just has to be a deadline so I picked tomorrow. I can change it.

Doc

[cupcakesnake]

POY

1. Napheesa Collier
2. A'ja Wilson
3. Breanna Stewart
4. Nneka Ogwumike
5. Alyssa Thomas

A'ja's insane volume scoring was enough for me to think she deserved the MVP over Phee. Then Phee kept going, being the best player in the playoffs leading the Lynx to what easily could have been the title with a few different calls. In the regular season, Phee had a statisticial argument over A'ja. With the massive advantage in the playoffs, this feels like an easy call to me.

Stewie just gave us her best defensive season ever, and led the Liberty to their first title. Nneka is simply the most rock solid 2-way player in the league after Phee. Alyssa Thomas dialed back the scoring, but I'm unconvinced her overall impact dipped low enough for anyone else to be considered better than her this season.

OPY

1. A'ja Wilson
2. Napheesa Collier
3. Sabrina Ionescu

The Aces offense kind of fell apart this year, and A'ja responded by opening her mouth and breathing fire all over the league all year long. She was simply unstoppable. She's like a prime Amar'e Stoudemire with her rim pressure and automatic pull up jumper, but without any of Amar'e weaknesses as playmaker.

Phee is the fundamentally sound player coaches should be showing footage of to all their young players at any level of basketball. Strength, shooting touch, perfect footwork, no mistakes. Great scoring aggression while being able to blend into a pass heavy offense.

I don't think Sabrina is a better offensive player than Stewie, but watching Liberty games, it's super clear that she is at the drivers seat in that league leading offense. Her shooting threat is the best in the league, and she figured out to leverage that into efficient drives and playmaking opportunities. Everything New York got into started with Sabrina.

DPOY
1. Alyssa Thomas
2. Napheesa Collier
3. Ezi Magbegor

This is a very very tough award. Crazy to leave Stewie, A'ja, Nneka and Alanna Smith off the ballot. The WNBA is a defensive league and 90% of players are very good defenders. I think it's harder to use lineup data than in the NBA, where the defensive gap between players is wider and coaches try to balance offensive vs. defensive lineups more. Napheesa is one of the most fundamentally sound defenders I've ever seen on the ball. Off the ball she knows how to use strength and length to make timely rotations and be a huge physical presence in the paint. I'm not actually positive that Napheesa is the biggest impact defender on the team, because the work Alanna Smith does on the backline is very much the lynchpin of that defensive scheme that prioritizes switching without getting stretched out of the paint. It's a bit like Ezi and Nneka holding down the backline for Seattle, where Ezi is the anchor who can rim protect and switch, where Nneka is the exceptional support defender.=

DPOY has recently become a bit of a consolation prize for the MVP runner up. This has come at the expense of Alyssa Thomas, who has never won it despite (by my eye) being clearly the best defender in the league over the past few years. What she does in terms of ground coverage is simply unpresented. There's no better combination of mobility, strength, and smarts in basketball. I'm aware the Sun (the league's best defense) was even better with AT off the floor this year, but I'm dismissing that as noise. It's 300 minutes against bench lineups and the Sun were well equipped to choke out bench units with very good defensive depth.

ROY
1. Caitlin Clark
2. Angel Rees
3. Leonie Fiebich

I don't think there's much to say here. Clark is one of the greatest rookies ever, and the Fever offense she ran was the talk of the league. Rees was very deserving to be in the conversation early on, when Clark's warts looked worse during the Fever's brutal early schedule. Ultimately Rees is a confusing player going forward. She clearly brings a lot to the table, but also has weird weaknesses. Fiebich didn't play a huge role this year, but then became the Liberty's x-factor in the playoffs.

MIP
1. Chennedy Carter
2. Bridget Carlton
3. Alanna Smith

The Lynx don't have the season they have without Carlton coming out nowhere to become one of the league's scariest shooters (and also a fierce tertiary attacker against close outs). Same can be said about Alanna Smith becoming all-defense level while also fixing her shot. While both are valid MIP choices, it's hard to pick them over a player who was out of the league last year who then became a playoff hopeful's leading scorer.

COY
1. Cheryl Reeve
2. Sandy Brondello
3. Christie Sides

I think the media got this one right. Minnesota was simply the best coached team in the league. Their discipline and consistency on offense and defense were what made them overachieve to the extent they did.

Brondello pushed the right buttons on both ends for this New York super team. I always felt the goals of New York's offense and defense, and it was just a matter of how well they'd achieve them night to night. Christie Sides didn't panic after a brutal schedule had the Fever looking broken (and a rabid fanbase screaming for her head). She knew how this offense was going to work, and once the dust cleared, it was clear she was correct. There wasn't enough defensive personnel for Indiana to be a real threat in the playoffs, but Sides did everything she was supposed to under a ton of scrutiny.

[TheWitcher]

These are my humble votes, as a new fan.

POY

1. Napheesa Collier
2. A'ja Wilson
3. Breanna Stewart
4. Alyssa Thomas
5. Caitlin Clark

When I was looking up A'ja's numbers during the season they looked like videogame numbers to me. It was all still very new to me, and there was no doubt in my mind that this was the best player in the league.

Then I started watching the Minnesota Lynx....

I think I have written enough about Phee in this forum.

I still stand on that Phee is a 6'1 Hakeem Olajuwon. Just the way they swarmed her in the playoffs and she was still able to be so effective was very impressive.

Would I be shocked if most people vote A'ja? Not at all

OPY

1. Napheesa Collier
2. A'ja Wilson
3. Caitlin Clark

I might catch some heat putting CC up here next to A'ja and Phee. She's already elite at running an offense, hell of a player. I have more details expanding on Phee in the awards thread.

DPOY
1. Breanna Stewart
2. Napheesa Collier
3. Alyssa Thomas

The playoffs had a strong influence on me on how I voted for DPOY. It is where it matters most. Stewie was fantastic for the Liberty.

ROY
1. Caitlin Clark
2. Angel Rees
3. Leonie Fiebich

I've already written a decent amount on Clark, she's a superstar.

MIP
1. Chennedy Carter
2. Alanna Smith
3. Sabrina Ionescu

I read somewhere that Alanna was close to not being in the league altogether. Going from that to being a key cog of a championship contending team is a huge leap.

Numbers wise Chennedy Carter going from not playing last season, and the season before averaging 9 PPG, then she becomes a main scoring option averaging 17 PPG. To me that's more than enough to let her run away with this one.

Sabrina deserves a mention, her not being a blackhole on defense was a game changer for the Liberty.

COY
1. Cherryl Reeves
2. Christie Sides
3. Stephanie White

I saw the light and changed my opinion a bit on Reeves. She did a really amazing job for the Lynx.

Sides (now fired) deserves recognition on how she handled the CC media circus.

Stephanie White seems to get the most out of her players. The way they played against the Lynx had me SWEATING. She deserves credit for that. Rumor has it she may even be the new coach for the Fever.

[Doctor MJ]

POY

1. Napheesa Collier (Min)
2. Breanna Stewart (NY)
3. Jonquel Jones (NY)
4. A'ja Wilson (LV)
5. Nneka Ogwumike (Sea)

HM: Alyssa Thomas (Con), Kayla McBride (Min), Caitlin Clark (Ind), Sabrina Ionescu (NY), Kelsey Plum (LV)

I should begin by acknowledging that, while Phee's playoff performance made her candidacy even stronger in my eyes, the more odd thing about my thinking this season was that in a season where A'ja was putting unprecedented scoring numbers leading to her winning the official MVP unanimously (and called by ESPN the greatest regular season in WNBA history), Phee was my choice, and my assessment of A'ja's value was strongly ambivalent in a moment where no one in elite WNBA circles (player, coach, media, etc) was saying anything other than glowing praise toward A'ja's play.

Hence, while I'm going to begin by giving my case for Phee as clearly ahead of the pack, I don't think that there's any doubt that A'ja Wilson is the Subject of the Year, in the sense of being the most important player to learn about.

Without further delay though, first things first:

Phee was in my assessment likely by FAR the most the most valuable player in the league. In terms of impact as judged by PlusMins/WOWY/Scoreboard Family stats, we still don't have regularly generated advanced data using techniques such as regression, and so it makes the process of using this data a little more error prone, but man, we see a lot of pro-Phee here.

In the Discussion thread I quoted various stats. I think the On/Off data is the stuff to really focus on here in comparing Phee to the other major MVP vote getters (A'ja & Stewie):

Phee +20.6
A'ja -4.1
Stewie +2.4

Obviously Phee is way ahead of the other two. As a general rule, I would consider numbers below zero (like A'ja here) to be alarming for a star, number above 10 to be elite, and numbers above 20 to be extreme outliers.

From a basketball perspective, what this just means is that one of these players teams is doing better with her on the court than you'd guess, and worse without.

Which would hopefully lead you to ask: How much better? Was Minnesota better with Phee playing than NY was with Stewie?

And the answer would be yes - at least against mutual competition. The Liberty did of course take the Finals over the Lynx, so I won't say the Lynx with Phee were better then, but I still thought Phee was the more impressive player in that series.

Now as I say +20 is an extreme outlier, I should address that Phee's co-star had a +15.9 in the regular season (McBride), which went up to +20.0 in the playoffs (Phee went to +43.8 in the playoffs.) When teammates have huge on/off numbers, that often means they are playing a ton of minutes together, which makes it hard to tell with any broad metric how the impact relationship with them is really working.

But thanks to pbpstats, I can see things like, how does playing with Phee (not a big 3-point shooter) affect McBride's (big-time 3-point shooter) 3P%?

McB with Phee: 41.3%
McB w/out Phee: 38.5%

As well as how 3-point oriented she is (3PAr):

McB with Phee: .646
McB w/out Phee: .547

This, to me, says fantastic things about Phee as an offensive player, and specifically assuages doubts I have about her reticence to embrace 3-point shooting. This is a team that is now shooting at an above-league-norm level of 3's, shooting them with easily the highest 3P% in the league, and the lead 3-point shooter of the group...is more focused on it, and doing it better, with Phee there.

So yeah, this difference in role where a player who seems like she should be able to shoot 3's a lot, is choosing not to, and it's working out so well, is interesting.

And yeah, the difference in role means it's necessarily going to be clear to me that Phee is the more essential player, but the data just clearly seems to favor Phee as the keystone

And of course, all of that stuff are just the indicators. What I love about Phee is that she's not doing this all that similarly to anyone else playing in either the W or the NBA. As we try to find analogies and end up looking to merge players as different as Olajuwon & Wade, it's just clear she's playing ball her own way.

Offensively in the half-court, she's something in between an off-ball perimeter player and an interior player. She's kind of like Jokic come to think of it - though I'm not comparing her vision to the Joker. The long and short of it is though that she's quite adept at generate and exploiting tension in the defense, when paired with perimeter shooters - which the Lynx now have, and which frankly I think there's plenty of talent out there waiting to be developed to supply the W with similar shooting.

Defensively, she's the top stockbroker in the game. Those surprisingly long arms paired with exceptional timing and quick decision making make her unique to watch...and it turns out it's quite impactful too.

All this to say: A breakthrough season for Napheesa Collier not simply joining the top ranks of the W, but surpassing them, in this fan's humble opinion.

Alright, the next two sport went to Liberty, but I think it now makes sense to dive into the paradox that was A'ja Wilson's season.

A'ja scores at a volume we've never seen before, and does so on high efficiency.
A'ja is the offensive player everyone in the league is more terrified of.
A'ja is the consensus choice as best player in the world and with good reason.
A'ja has been the back bone of back-to-back WNBA championship and
A'ja just shined above all other in the Olympics for Team USA.

It is very hard to do what A'ja does. Of that there can be no doubt. But her W team took a major step back this year, and the impact metrics don't indicate this was about a loss of team depth. Rather, the Aces performed better on the scoreboard when she sat, than when she stood.

What the heck is going on?

Well, let's start by recognizing that the Aces' Point Gawd, Chelsea Grey, was injured and missed time. As floor general, Grey was the one most adept to weld the team's scoring talents together into something even greater. As such, with the team taking a step back without Grey, it makes sense if the scheme synergy devolves into something less than the sum of its parts.

So then looking at those same 3-point stats we looked at with the Lynx duo with the current Aces' Big 2:

3P%:
Plum with A'ja 36.0%
Plum w/out A'ja 43.1%

3PAr:
Plum with A'ja: .536
Plum w/out A'ja: .586

Other stats I've looked up corroborate this: Unlike with Phee in Minny, the Aces' are clearly shooting more 3's and shooting them better, without A'ja, and so there is a problem associated with A'ja on the court.

Frankly if I were looking to go purely by impact stats, I'd favor Plum over Wilson as the MVP of the Aces. But of course the thing is: Wilson's an interior player who can only shot-hog if guards like Plum first give her the ball with the intention of Wilson shooting it. So the problem would then seem to be less about what Wilson is doing out there, and more to do with the decision making of the other players.

All of that makes it tricky to diagnose credit and blame. I'm not quite ready to side with Plum because I do have a tendency to value that box score production, and I do think that the thing making Wilson in effect less valuable has its origins in the brains of her coach and teammates.

I also don't want to blow these issues out of proportion. The reality is that the Aces' had a great offense and if you're looking to point to better offense played while a player is on the court outside of Las Vegas, you're basically just talking about the Liberty and the Phee/McBride combo (as well as Clark's Fever later in the year).

So in the end A'ja remains my top POY candidate for the Aces, and I'm really only comfortable knocking the team performance relative to the Liberty & Lynx (Aces' won the match-up with the Sun). For the Lynx, that just puts Phee ahead of her for me. But for the Liberty it's tricky.

The Liberty have such a cornucopia of talent, deciding between the players is tricky, but while I'll give a shout out to several other players on the team (Leonie, Laney, Sloot, Sabally...), I only ever seriously considered the Big 3 of Stewie, Jonquel & Sabrina for a Top 5 spot. And for those 3 I went down to the final buzzer before definitively making my decision...but must acknowledge my order didn't change with the playoffs.

In the end I'd boil the 3 of them down as:

Stewie - the former MVP who literally does the most out there for the team
Jonquel - the former MVP whose ability to stretch the floor from either the inside or outside pays huge dividends
Sabrina - the guard who seems poised to be the most irreplaceable player given the first two are bigs.

While a case can be made that the balance of fit on the team made Sabrina the MVP, the fact that it was not she but Jonquel who led the team (and league) in +/- makes that arguments a hard one for me - and the fact that the season ended with Sabrina seeming not just replaceable but benchable made it just go away for this season.

With that data, Jonquel's got an argument over Stewie as well, but I can't quite get there. The fact of the matter is that it would sure be nice for the Liberty if Jonquel could play as much as Stewie, and plays with as much energy as Stewie, and the fact that she can't has everything to do with why Stewie had more points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks (but not more turnovers) than Jonquel in a series where Jonquel somehow won the MVP.

Additionally there's the matter that it is Stewie who feels like she adapted her game the most this season to help Jonquel & Sabrina take on a bigger role, and this was true both on & off the court.

So I'll hold the line there for Stewie over Jonquel as the top Liberty, but in the case of both, what I feel a need to praise is the fact that the way they played together got more out of the Liberty talent than what the Aces' ended up getting from theirs.

I can stop short of putting A'ja below a) teammates and b) players from worse teams, but I think she could take a page from all 3 of Phee, Stewie & Jonquel.

----------------------------------------------------------

On that 5th spot, I debated between Nneka and all of the HM list, as well as her teammates Skylar & Jewell. In the end, that Storm team was darn good in their core lineup, and I think Nneka was the best all around player from either that team or the Sun, or any of the worse teams.

I gave AT an HM mention, and ended up no picking Bonner. Both were quite debatable, but AT feels like the player who defines the team culture and its dominant defense beyond anyone else.

And then I gave HM to the 4 guards I thought accomplished the most this year. So that included 2 All-WNBA players in Clark & Sabrina, but included winning guards McBride & Plum over Copper & Arike whose teams really didn't pan out.

OPOY

1. Napheesa Collier (Min)
2. Jonquel Jones (NY)
3. A'ja Wilson (LV)

HM: Breanna Stewart (NY), Caitlin Clark (Ind)

Much of the conversation for this award is covered in the POY discussion so I'll try to keep it brief.

The choice of Jonquel over A'ja seems utterly absurd given how much more Wilson had primacy and production, but as I said: The strategy of the Liberty just plain worked considerably better than the Aces, and Jonquel being the best shooter her size we've probably ever seen in the W was absolutely critical to that synergization.

Still giving A'ja that 3rd spot over Stewie and partly because I think Stewie has some of the same issues going.

Clark gets a nod for HM, though I was tempted to put McBride, Sabrina, or Plum ahead of her.

DPOY

1. Napheesa Collier (Min)
2. Breanna Stewart (NY)
3. Alyssa Thomas (Con)

HM: Ezi Magbegor (Sea), DeWanna Bonner (Con)

Once again, Phee just separates herself in the data in a way that's just not clear with the other contenders.

I felt Stewie really shined on defense this and could definitely see a case for her a DPOY, or at least DPOY worthy.

I mostly debated in the 3rd spot between AT & Ezi. Ezi's candidacy is actually pretty straight forward compared to AT's at this point, but I do tend to see AT as the foundation of the quality defensive culture for the Sun (with Bonner as her Robin).

What about A'ja? Worse impact indicators on defense this year than on offense, and this is a real left turn for a star who was a DPOY level player before she was an OPOY level player imho. Part of what might be going on here is that she's tiring herself out offensively. Part of what might be going on here are teammates who effectively "coast" on both sides of the ball when A'ja's out there, and then look to pick up more of the slack when A'ja's on the bench. As always, doesn't mean A'ja's "bad", but it does that things aren't quite working like they were before, and A'ja - along with everyone else in Vegas - needs to look into the mirror and then re-group.

ROY

1. Caitlin Clark (Ind)
2. Leonie Fiebich (NY)
3. Angel Reese (Chi)

HM: Rickea Jackson (LA), Kamilla Cardoso (Chi)

First I'll share a linke in spoilers to what I wrote in the Discussion thread:

Spoiler:

Not sure if there's much need for discussion here. While ROY debates can get extremely complicated, I'd expect that for most (myself included), what Clark was demonstrating toward the end of the season made her a lock for the #1 spot.

On Angel Reese: I do think she deserved consideration for the #1 spot early in the year and we shouldn't undersell what she accomplished as a rookie. She really does appear to be the greatest rebounder the W's ever seen which is crazy. Further, while I understand the argument that coach Spoon shouldn't have been feeding such an inept shooter, there's no denying that the team did way better with Angel on the court than without.

And yet, I think Leonie Fiebich's emergence in the playoffs should make us seriously consider putting her over Reese. If the Liberty don't have Leonie, I think the Lynx are champions right now.

Now, good to point out that (a) Fiebich wouldn't have made the Sky into champs, so it ain't exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, and (b) Fiebich is 3 years older (24 vs 21), and also (c) she's not anything like a "rookie professional" because she's been playing pro ball in Europe, but a couple things:

1st, I'm not aware of the WNBA giving any indication that someone like Fiebich should be ineligible for the award, so while I think it's fine to be less impressed with Fiebich because of her age and experience, I believe we should all be at least considering her.

2nd, I think there's a critical question to ask as we consider giving a player advantage in ROY because they are younger:

Do we actually think that younger player is likely to be able to do what the older player just showed they can do?

What we saw from Fiebich (imho as always) was the work of someone demonstrating that they knew how to play as an all-around star - with all the well-rounded skills that entails - but could also thrive adjusting her game to be a take-nothing-off-the-table role player when playing with mega-talented teammates.

Do we really think something like that is in the cards for Reese? I'm skeptical, but I'll be really happy if others disagree so long as they think on it and elaborate on what they're seeing.

Of course with Reese if she can become a much better shooter, that changes everything, so if you think this is likely, that's going to shape your thoughts her. I'm not that hopeful on her being able to do this though.

That gets into the whole dynamic of the Big 3 here. I feel like much of it's already been said, and before I move past Clark, I'll just emphasize that what she was demonstrated toward the end of the year absolutely makes her look like someone who will become the best offensive player in the league, and quite possibly an MVP when that happens.

But really it's Leonie Fiebich I feel the need to talk more about. Here's a stat for y'all on rookie +/-, the leaderboard this year (all-season):

1. Fiebich (NY) +373
2. Sherrod (NY) +15
3. Epoupa (Min) +14
4. Reese (Chi) +13
5. Celeste Taylor (Con/Ind/Phx) +12

So obviously, Fiebich is just on a whole nother level.

Here's the all-time leaderboard:

1. 2024 Fiebich (NY) +373
2. 2011 Moore (Min) +343
3. 1998 Lamb (Hou) +254
4. 2013 Delle Donne (Chi) +252
5. 2018 Atkins (Was ) +233

Now, the season is longer than it used to be, but however you slice it, Fiebich did something super-outlier in her rookie season.

Fiebich also led the post-season in +/-, and shoved Moore down to 2nd all-time for rookie playoffs +/- (albeit playing in a longer playoff).

All this to say in a nutshell: I would consider Fiebich the Most Valuable Rookie this season over Clark (or Reese or anyone else), and if that's all I considered when evaluating ROY, she'd be my choice.

But with ROY I also think about what a player demonstrated and what it means for my expectations for the rest of their career. There's really no doubt in my mind that Clark is the most impressive rookie this season, and she did it having to carry an obscene load with basically no break between college and the start of the WNBA season.

Beyond the main 3, shout out to Jackson in LA & Cardoso in Chicago. Wish Brink had been able to play the full season.

MIP

1. Bridget Carleton (Min)
2. Chennedy Carter (Chi)
3. DiJonai Carrington (Con)

HM: Alanna Smith (Min)

First, sharing some stuff from my Discussion thread posting:

Spoiler:

To set context, here was the ordering in the official WNBA voting:

1. Dijonai Carrington (Con)
2. Dearica Hamby (LA)
3. Bridget Carleton (Min)
4. Chennedy Carter (Chi)
5. Jordan Horston (Sea)
(tie) Sabrina Ionescu (NY)
(tie) Alanna Smith (Min)

On Carrington: Statistically what we're mostly talking about here is that she more than doubled her minutes from last season (MPG increased from 17.2 to 29.6). Doesn't mean she didn't improve, but she definitely feels like someone who got a promotion in prominence to mostly keep doing what she was already doing. This doesn't necessarily affect the strength of her candidacy depending on your criteria, but definitely an important thing to bear in mind for an award like this.

On Hamby, two separate things on my mind:

1st, I'm realizing I have to shift how I think about this award compared to what I do in the NBA. For the NBA, my general rule is that previous all-stars shouldn't be considered for MIP because historically that's been something of an unwritten rule, and I believe the impulse behind it is understandable. Accolades like this exist for the buzz they hope to generate, and so attaching a less prestigious award to a more prestigious one is avoided.

But the problem in the W is that less teams make that the bar for making all-star with respect to how much of a standout your compared to your league, is lower. And so a policy that insists on the letter of the NBA's unwritten rule would very much change the tier of player you want to shine a brighter light on, and if the community of the WNBA would rather not do that, it makes sense and I feel like I just need to adapt.

Hence, even though Hamby was already a 2-time all-star, I'm not using that to throw out her candidacy for my personal ballot.

2nd, so, as folks may know, I do tend to look at +/- stats and while that certainly includes the fancy stuff, I also like the raw data because I think there's some meaning there for us fans.

So I enjoy looking at the raw leader in raw +/- for the season (which I'll talk about when it's relevant) and then, because it's so easy to just flip the list, here are the worst performers of the season:

1. Dearica Hamby (LA) -275
2. Arike Ogunbowale (Dal) -249
3. Rickea Jackson (LA) -242
4. Dana Evans (Chi) -237
5. Jacy Shelden (Dal) -235

Now look, I'm not saying this implies that these were the worst 5 players in the league this past year - we'd expect the worst players to not play enough to rack up a highly negative number.

But what I would say in these situations is that it's challenging to argue that you added significant value when the team was so ineffective when you were on the court.

On Carleton: HUGE emergence as an elite volume 3-point shooter which was absolutely critical to the Lynx coming out of nowhere to nearly win it all. There's probably some team-jelling going on here that's more than just about her individual improvement, but seems like she's clearly a worthy choice.

On Carter: Would be a strong candidate for a "Comeback Player of the Year", but I'm not sure she's improved that much from earlier in her career so much as she finally found a new home that let her do her thing.

Note that the other 3 vote-getters below each only got one vote.

On Horston: I'm honestly not sure what the case for her is exactly.
On Sabrina: Okay c'mon now, she's been All-W twice before this year. Too elite for this award imho.
On Smith: Seems like the big jump happened before the 2023 season and MIP voters saw it then.

If there are others folks want to champion - particularly possibly based on the playoffs, I hope they do! It's easy to miss a candidate in this category.

I think you can basically guess my rankings based on that previous post. I thought Carleton was clear stand out here.

6WOY

1. Leonie Fiebich (NY)
2. Alysha Clark (LV)
3. Tiffany Hayes (LV)

HM: Lexie Hull (Ind)

Prior post:

Spoiler:

Here I always tend to focus on the players who qualify (primarily not a starter) while playing the most minutes on the best teams, though sometimes things get weird...and it got weird for the W this season, as you'll see below:

NY - Fiebich, Thornton
Min - Hiedeman, Dorka
Con - Mabrey (ineligible), Burton
LV - Clark, Hayes
Sea - Horston, Russell
Ind - Hull, Samuelson

First weirdness is the Sun's top 6th woman not being eligible.

Second weirdness? Tiffany Hayes won the award despite being only the 2nd most used bench player on her own team behind Alysha Clark who only got a single vote. Part of what's going on here is surly Hayes' bucket-getting...but I wonder if part of what's going on here is that voters essentially saw Clark as one of the Aces' main 5 even if she came off the bench, and so didn't really feel like she "fit" the archetype of 6WOY like Hayes did.

I'll say Leonie Fiebich is the clear cut stand out to me in the wake of the playoffs...but depending on your personal philosophy, it might actually hurt her case. If you only credit "Sixths" with what they do in games where they come off the bench, then Leonie the Playoff Star(ter) is irrelevant. I respect that viewpoint, and I don't want to give the award to someone who potentially wasn't actually that good as a bench player, but when you gradually earn a starting spot over a living legend which made it hard for you to really get all-star recognition despite clearly demonstrating that level over the course of things, I can't help but want to honor you.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Mystics' Shatori Walker-Kimbrough because she came in 3rd in the voting behind Hayes & Fiebich...but I can't really make a case for her.

Boiling it down:

- Fiebich was BY FAR the choice here for me. Yeah the time in the playoffs where she started was the best part of the year, but she earned that place in the playoffs with that stellar 6th man performance.

- Still siding with Clark over Hayes. I get that Hayes feels more like a "6th Man", but Clark was a bigger part of the team and still qualified.

- Putting two Aces on my ballot which is quite strange given the fact they had a disappointing year, but it's a small league and frankly the non-Lynx elite teams don't really have serious eligible candidates.

COY

1. Cheryl Reeve (Min)
2. Stephanie White (Con)
3. Sandy Brondello (NY)

HM: Christie Sides (Ind)

So first, my prior post where I'm talking about both COY & EOY contenders:

Spoiler:

Okay, on the masterminds off-the court, COY & EOY:

I have to combine them to some degree because Cheryl Reeve is a coach-GM still in this day and age where that's considered a recipe for disaster, she just won both the official COY & official EOY, and, well, I doubt I'll end up voting against her in either award.

Let me start in my analysis here: I'm as impressed with her coaching performance over the Maya Moore dynasty as I think most were. The dynasty on the whole was not pace and not space...but relied the whole time on Moore, who was an extreme motor athlete (which lends itself to pace), and about the space?

Here's the 3-point leaderboard for the Lynx during Moore's 8 year career:

1. Maya Moore 530
2. Seimone Augustus 158
3. Candice Wiggins 107
4. Renee Montgovery 79
5. Lindsay Whalen 68

If you're keeping tabs there, that means Moore's total dwarfs the combined total of her 4 closest teammates, despite entering the WNBA 7 years after Seven Seconds or Less hit the NBA in Phoenix.

I think people tend to want to believe that if you won a title - and especially if you won a lot of titles - that what you were doing was the right strategic call, but rationally we know this isn't true, and so I'll just say it:

I think the Lynx could have been considerably more dominant than they already were if they just looked to surround Moore with pace & space players. Reeve's failing to do that in the 2010s doesn't put her behind her WNBA coaching peers, so in that sense it wasn't a competitive disadvantage, but I think the strategy was there for her to jump on board with and she didn't do it.

And then she continued to never really leave the old-school basketball mindset until Sylvia Fowles retired in 2022.

But oh man, look at her team now in 2024!

The only players who were on the team in both 2023 & 2024:

Napheesa Collier (acq. 2019)
Bridget Carleton (2019)
Kayla McBride (2021)
Diamond Miller (2023)
Dorka Juhasz (2023)

Reeve jettisoned most of her roster between last year and this, and the result was a +10.1 SRS improvement with an absolutely beautiful form of basketball that - while not an outlier - is at least shooting considerably more 3's than before.

And let's note that this all worked astonishingly well building around Collier, who really doesn't play like anyone else in the league. Reeve's was bold as hell based on a specific vision to build around someone unusual, and damn if she didn't seem to nail both the strategy, the personnel, and the actual coaching-up of the team to enable that chemistry.

I honestly think this might be the most impressive year in Reeve's career, and I think it really cements her as the WNBA's coaching GOAT.

Okay, moving on to talk about other team's coaches & execs:

Champion New York has coach Sandy Brondello and exec Jonathan Kolb. Kolb won EOY in 2023 for possibly the greatest off-season season since the Houston Comets accidentally acquired an overwhelming superteam in 1997, and the big new addition to the club this year (Fiebich) was acquired during that 2023 season too. This then to say that while Kolb is sitting pretty right now, it's hard for me to get excited about him as an EOY candidate for just this season.

What about Brondello? Does someone really deserve COY for being the coach of the champion when that champion has by far the most talent among all contenders? Well, some at least. The team is clearly better than it was a year ago when I think it was correctly diagnosed as a bunch of individual talents who hadn't really figured out how to adapt together when pushed out of their comfort zone. And while I'll give a ton of credit to Stewie & co on the floor for this, a coach can ruin those efforts if she's trying to make things work the wrong way.

People have been critical of Brondello's tendency to not challenge calls and not call timeouts often enough, and I can't say I think they're wrong - she's got some of that Phil Jackson - Steve Kerr thing where she doesn't seem worried about absolutely maxing out the performance in one particular game, which really doesn't age well when everything comes down to one overtime.

On the other hand, the way she made adjustments with the rise of players like Fiebich & Sabally, seemed masterful. Maybe it's luck, but I'm reluctant to assume it's all luck.

For the Connecticut Sun, the acquisition of Marbrey was absolutely huge, and makes Darius Taylor a serious contender for EOY. As for coach Stephanie White, honestly I just continue to be impressed that the Sun keep being as competitive as they are when they have such a player with a clear weakness - AT, shooting - at the fulcrum. I feel like they've been punching above their weight ever since Jonquel left, and while part of that is inherent fit, that is also when White come to Connecticut.

The next team by performance is the Aces, but honestly it doesn't seem like a year at all to celebrate their off-court performance when everything - including morale - seemed to take a real step backward.

Seattle's interesting because it didn't really feel like a successful year to me, but by all reasonable standards it was. They acquired 2 big names (Nneka & Skylar), and saw their SRS improve by 9.0 to earn a highly winning record. And so I feel like coach Noelle Quinn and exec Talia Rhea deserve some accolade consideration here, even if I can't help but think that this was a team for whom success really means at least winning a playoff series.

For the Indiana Fever, I don't mind coach Christie Sides and exec Lin Dunn getting praise for the positive patience they seem to be exuding as Clark figures out the W, and they figure out what works best with Clark at this level. But I also don't think I'd be utterly dying to hire either Sides or Dunn based on their 2024 performance. They've earned the right to keep their leadership positions, but it feels early to let either take a victory lap.

In a nutshell:

1. Reeve just felt like she was in a class all her own with what she put together this year.

2. I thought a lot about Brondello and it was really only White - who coached a elite team with considerably less talent - that I felt accomplished more.

3. Brondello benefitted from having more talent than anyone else, and she may not call as many timeouts or challenges as we'd like, but she made some big decisions that really paid off.

Shout out to Sides. Hope she'll get another chance soon.

EOY

1. Cheryl Reeve (Min)
2. Darius Taylor (Con)
3. Talisa Rhea (Sea)

HM: Jonathan Kolb (NY)

Nutshell:

1. Reeve made massive changes to her team, and it all seemed to work like magic.
2. Taylor acquiring Marbrey by trade mid-season was beyond huge giving the team exactly what they needed
3. Rhea acquired big time players in the off-seas, and it was good, but I'm still a bit unsure about fit.
4. Kolb does the victory lap after an all-timer of a GMing season in 2023.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

This is the Voting thread for the RealGM WNBA Board's All-Season awards. It is intended to be used solely for voting

Hi. Would it be okay for me to vote too?

Sorry I asked so late. I forgot it was happening honestly.

I still don't have PM perms.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, I've tallied the votes (sorry SHAI, need to make the call now and unfortunately didn't see what you asked for early enough).

I'll list the results and the award winners, then I'll link to spreadsheets I've created for this year and going forward.

Note that because I was the only one voting for EOY, I have not included that as an "official" award this time around. (I was on the fence about including 6WOY given that there were only 2 votes there, but the votes agreed with each other and I think the results are meaningful.)

POY



1. Napheesa Collier (Min) 37 (3)
2. A'ja Wilson (LV) 27 (1)
3. Breanna Stewart (NY) 22
4. Nneka Ogwumike (Sea) 7
5. Alyssa Thomas (Con) 5
(tie) Jonquel Jones (NY) 5
7. Caitlin Clark (Ind) 1

OPOY



1. Napheesa Collier (Min) 16 (2)
2. A'ja Wilson (LV) 14 (2)
3. Jonquel ones (NY) 3
4. Caitlin Clark (Ind) 2
5. Sabrina Ionescu (NY) 1

DPOY



1. Napheesa Collier (Min) 16 (2)
2. Breanna Stewart (NY) 9 (1)
3. Alyssa Thomas (Con) 7 (1)
4. A'ja Wilson (LV) 3
5. Ezi Magbegor (Seat) 1

ROY



1. Caitlin Clark (Ind) 20 (4)
2. Angel Reese (Chi) 8
(tie) Leonie Fiebich (NY) 8

Clark won unanimously.

MIP



1. Chennedy Carter (Chi) 13 (2)
2. Bridget Carleton (Min) 11 (1)
3. Dearica Hamby (LA) 5 (1)
4. Alanna Smith (Min) 4
5. DiJonai Carrington (Con) 1
(tie) Emily Engstler (Was) 1
(tie) Sabrina Ionescu (NY) 1

6WOY



1. Leonie Fiebich (NY) 10 (2)
2. Alysha Clark (LV) 3
(tie) Emily Engstler (WAS) 3
4. Lexie Hull (Ind) 1
(tie) Tiffany Hayes (LV) 1

Fiebich won unanimously.

COY



1. Cheryl Reeve (Min) 18 (3)
2. Sandy Brondello (NY) 9 (1)
3. Stephanie White (Con) 5
4. Christie Sides (Ind) 4

Spreadsheets:
2024 RealGM WNBA All-Season Award Voting
RealGM WNBA All-Season Award Winners
RealGM WNBA All-Season Award Shares

[IlikeSHAIguys]

Its okay, I should have asked earlier. Thanks for being nice about it