2026 WNBA Awards Picks for MVP, Rookie of the Year, More

The 2026 WNBA regular season is coming to a close this week, so it's time to assess where the major award races stand.

Some are almost complete locks, while others, particularly Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player, are much more up for debate.

These are our picks for each award, not predictions of what voters will do. But for transparency, we don't have an official ballot. These choices are simply based on how we would vote after evaluating each player's season.

Rotation players from Minnesota's 2025 roster left for contracts over $12 million combined, they missed out on Gabby Williams and Nneka Ogwumike in free agency and Napheesa Collier was sidelined over half of the season due to injury. Yet, they still have the best record in the league.

Cheryl Reeve deserves an enormous amount of credit. It took no time for her to build an elite offense around No. 2 pick Olivia Miles, Natasha Howard is playing like her 2019 self again and Nia Brodie (formerly Coffey) has turned into a quality three-and-D wing again after it looked like her WNBA career might be over following two rough seasons.

Sydney Johnson also deserves major props for getting Washington into the playoffs in just his second season. The same goes for Natalie Nakase, who has Golden State over 30 wins. The Valkyries are one of the few teams in WNBA history to win at least 70 percent of their games without a superstar.

Your pick for Most Improved Player probably comes down to how you define the award. Is it the player who made the biggest statistical jump? Or the player who made the most tangible improvements to their game?

If you believe it's the former, Dallas' Jessica Shepard is the clear pick. She's improved her production across the board, earned an All-Star selection and helped lead the Wings back to the playoffs in the process.

For us, though, Portland guard Carla Leite is the best combination of both. She's increased her scoring by 8.8 points per game while making significant strides as both a shooter and passer. Her three-point percentage jumped by 22.7 percent, while her assist rate increased by 20.3 percent.

Leite is just the 10th player in WNBA history to increase her scoring by at least eight points per game and true shooting percentage by 8 percentage points in a single season, per Across The Timeline .

Washington center Shakira Austin also deserves serious consideration after the star leap she's made this season.

Janelle Salaün has scored 492 points off the bench this season. That's 171 more than her Golden State teammate Tiffany Hayes, who's in second place, and 221 more than the Aces' Jewell Loyd at No. 7, despite playing 104 fewer minutes than Loyd.

Salaün can flat-out score. She can run off screens, spot up and hit step-back jumpers while being almost completely unbothered by closeouts. She's 6'3", and her release is so high that it's impossible to contest.

Salaün is averaging 12.9 points in just 22.3 minutes per game, which translates to 20.9 points per 36 minutes. That's in the same general range as stars like Napheesa Collier and Nneka Ogwumike.

Golden State is 11.9 points per 100 possessions better offensively with Salaün on the court. The Valkyries also have the infrastructure to insulate her defensively, allowing her to just go out there and get buckets.

A week into the season, Olivia Miles was already the runaway Rookie of the Year favorite, and it's only become more clear since then.

Barring a voter throwing a random vote elsewhere, Miles should become the sixth unanimous ROY in WNBA history, joining Aliyah Boston, A'ja Wilson, Elena Delle Donne, Tina Charles and Candace Parker.

At point guard for the Lynx, Miles is the best player on the No. 1 seed, completely taking over games as a pick-and-roll playmaker and driver. And now she's knocking down threes at a high level too, shooting 38.8 percent from deep on a high volume of pull-ups.

Her ability to create shots for herself and others is downright unbelievable. Miles is scoring 19.5 unassisted points per 100 possessions (No. 1 in the league) while posting a true shooting percentage 4.9 points above league average.

She can make virtually every pass, lives at the rim and has the pull-up game to counter defenses when they go under on screens. It's an almost impossible offensive skill set.

Defensive Player of the Year: Shakira Austin

This year's DPOY race is more wide open than ever, with as many as seven players having legitimate cases. You could go in several different directions and have a valid argument, but our pick is Washington Mystics center Shakira Austin.

Austin is anchoring the league's No. 2 defense while leading the youngest playoff team in WNBA history.

She can do just about everything defensively. The 26-year-old is elite at defending in ball screens, with the ability to switch, play at the level or in drop. Her lateral movement and flexibility are special. Austin's active off the ball, rotates quickly and uses her length and athleticism to make plays in help, too.

She's also been remarkably disciplined. Austin is just the 12th player to post a 4 percent block rate and a foul rate below 3 percent in a season (minimum 20 games played and 25 minutes per game), according to HerHoopStats .

Opponents are shooting just 49.7 percent at the rim against Austin this season, the best mark among all WNBA players, according to Yahoo Sports' Nekias Duncan .

Gabby Williams was our original pick, but her minutes load for Golden State is the biggest flaw in her case. She's played more than 300 fewer minutes than Austin this season, and her 24.8 minutes per game would be the lowest average ever for a DPOY winner.

Angel Reese also has a compelling case. Her on/off impact is massive, with the Dream allowing 14 fewer points per 100 possessions with her on the floor (No. 1 in the league). Reese also forces more turnovers than any frontcourt player and consistently ends possessions on the glass.

But as good as Reese has been defensively in space, she doesn't protect the rim anywhere near Austin's level, and Washington's defense has been slightly better overall this season.

Another season, another A'ja Wilson MVP award.

Wilson will likely win her third straight MVP and fifth overall, and she just turned 30 years old last month. At this point, there's a good chance she could pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's NBA record six MVPs before her career is over.

Wilson is averaging 26.2 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists for the Aces while shooting 54.6 percent from two and 40 percent from three. She's also shooting 86.5 percent from the free-throw line on over eight attempts per game.

Even in what might be a down defensive season by Wilson's standards, she's still one of the five best defenders in the league. She leads the WNBA with 2.0 blocks per game, and her advanced metrics remain off the charts.

Olivia Miles is having a historic season, Breanna Stewart is still a superstar, Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell are offensive monsters. But there really isn't a recency bias argument that could keep Wilson from winning this award.

Nobody has ever impacted the game on both ends quite like her.