It’s a clean slate as the WNBA tips off its 30th season on Friday. What happened a year ago matters less than what is about to come in a marathon to the playoffs scheduled to begin during the final days of September.
The best teams and clear-cut frontrunners for individual awards will show themselves as the season churns along. Everything right now is healthy assumptions based on previous performances and future projections.
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But we have to start somewhere.
Without a single jump ball of the 2026 WNBA season, here are the leading candidates for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Player and Coach of the Year.
Most Valuable Player
A’ja Wilson, Aces
She’s a four-time MVP, three-time WNBA champion and two-time Finals MVP before the age of 30. What else is there to say? The 6-4 center is the Aces’ focal point on both ends, and her leadership helped turn around a .500 season into a championship a year ago. She has long-established chemistry with guards Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young, both of whom re-signed, and is an extension of head coach Becky Hammon.
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Wilson led the league in scoring and rebounding each of the past two seasons, and produced the most efficient 3-point season (.424, 25 of 59) of her career.
Caitlin Clark, Fever
It’s likely Clark will be a mainstay MVP watch throughout her career, given the attention she draws and her ability to pack a box score. She’s averaging 18.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 8.5 assists and 1.4 steals in 53 games as a pro. In her All-Star Rookie of the Year campaign, she finished fourth in MVP voting behind standard bearers Wilson, Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.
Clark’s candidacy will always be slightly hampered by playing the point guard position. Forwards are historically the winners in this category. Her team’s success will also play a massive role, as will her health. The Fever need a top-four seed, at minimum, and a full season from Clark for her to take the individual honor. The organization’s intent to limit reps and keep Clark from dealing with full-court defensive pressure every possession also lines her up well, though center Aliyah Boston could also emerge as a candidate.
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Breanna Stewart/Jonquel Jones/Sabrina Ionescu, Liberty
Call it cheating, but we like to dub it efficiency, linking these three teammates together on a candidacy line. The Liberty are a team built around All-Star talent, and as such, it’s difficult to parse out which one would be a leading MVP contender on a squad that could finish first in league standings.
Stewart could become the first winner age 30 or older since Sylvia Fowles in 2017. The 31-year-old forward and three-time WNBA champion won MVPs in Seattle in 2018 and in New York in 2023. If she can regain efficiency from the perimeter, she’ll have a strong shot. Jonquel Jones, the 6-6 center, has always been the underrated key to the Liberty’s success. She won her sole MVP with Connecticut in 2021. And Ionescu is the Liberty’s backcourt building block, their first and only No. 1 overall pick who has improved defensively throughout her young career. Ionescu finished a career-high sixth in MVP voting in 2024.
Alyssa Thomas, Mercury
Thomas, 34, has yet to win an MVP (she also hasn’t won a WNBA championship). The window appears to be closing, but her ability to pack the stat sheet with historic triple-doubles will keep her in contention. Thomas is a point-forward in Phoenix, initiating the offense to either find outside shooters or use her strength to barrel through the paint. The concern is that the Mercury didn’t improve this offseason; instead, they lost the third head of their snake, Satou Sabally, in free agency.
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Napheesa Collier, Lynx
Collier has also yet to win the award, an unfortunate reality of playing in the same era as Wilson. The Lynx forward will miss the first part of the season after undergoing ankle surgery in March. No MVP in league history has missed more than 15.6% of the regular season, a ding on Collier’s resume a year ago when she missed games due to injury.
Also considered: Aliyah Boston (Fever); Paige Bueckers (Wings); Kelsey Plum (Sparks); Allisha Gray (Dream)
Rookie of the Year
Azzi Fudd, Wings
It’s more probable than not that the No. 1 draft pick goes on to win WNBA Rookie of the Year. That’s been the case for 16 of the past 28 winners of the award, including each of the past four seasons.
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Fudd, one of the game’s best pure shooters, will have the opportunity as a key starter in Dallas, a franchise that signed significant free agents to climb out of the standings basement. The fit next to Paige Bueckers, with whom she won the 2024 NCAA national championship at UConn, will provide immediate comfort.
The key for Fudd is to carry over the success she had as a redshirt senior and approach her 3-point looks with aggression, rather than shying away from the attempt.
Olivia Miles, Lynx
Miles is in arguably the best position to shine as a rookie. She’s the type of point guard who fills up every part of the box score, leaving the college ranks with 12 triple-doubles and averages of 15.6 points, 6.3 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game.
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The 5-10 guard will likely be inserted into the starting lineup immediately, surrounded by veteran presences in Kayla McBride, Courtney Williams and Collier (when she returns from injury). Having Hall of Famer and Lynx assistant Lindsay Whalen, who won four championships in seven years at the position, in Miles’ ear is another major asset.
Also considered: Awa Fam Thiam (Storm); Kiki Rice (Tempo); Flau’jae Johnson (Storm).
Defensive Player of the Year
A’ja Wilson, Aces
Wilson is a three-time winner of the award, earning it in 2022, ’23 and ’25. She consistently tops the league in defensive rating and has led in blocks each of the four seasons, averaging 2.3 per game in that span. She’s also top-10 in steals. The lack of major movement within the starting lineup during her career is a boon to Wilson’s candidacy for any award, as it is for most of the Aces to have that on-court relationship already set.
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Alanna Smith, Wings
Smith won a share of the 2025 title in a historic tie with Wilson, one season after Lynx teammate Napheesa Collier unofficially honored her contributions when Collier won the award outright. Smith tied Wilson in defensive rating as the last line of defense on the league’s best defense.
Smith, a 6-4 forward, signed a three-year max deal with Dallas in free agency and will be tasked with lifting a franchise that ranked dead last in defensive rating each of the past two seasons. Her candidacy will go as the Wings’ collective defense does, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she wins it without that backing.
Aliyah Boston, Fever
It takes young players a few years to develop elite defense, and Boston is entering that realm. The 6-5 fourth-year Fever center is coming off an Unrivaled Defensive Player of the Year honor after 29 blocks in 14 games for Phantom BC.
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Indiana’s defense improved to allowing fewer than 100 points scored per 100 possessions for the first time since 2019. That’s what having head coach Stephanie White at the helm will do for a squad. That 99.9 mark also tied the Aces, showing that team defense doesn’t always contribute to a candidacy.
Aliyah Boston flaunted her defensive chops during the second season of Unrivaled. (Photo by Leonardo Fernandez/Getty Images)
(Leonardo Fernandez via Getty Images)
Gabby Williams, Valkyries
Williams earned a third overall and second consecutive EuroLeague Defensive Player of the Year title this offseason. A WNBA one has eluded the 5-11 guard/forward.
She finished third in DPOY voting last year with nine points, trailing the 29 received by co-winners Wilson and Smith. The knock against her candidacy was largely that the Storm finished seventh, whereas Smith’s Lynx and Wilson’s Aces finished first and second, respectively. The Valkyries are poised to be an elite defensive menace.
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It’s also that the 4 and 5 positions control this award. The last guard to receive the award was Alana Beard’s back-to-back wins for the Sparks in 2017-18. Houston’s Sheryl Swoopes (2000, ’02, ’03) and New York’s Teresa Weatherspoon (1997, ’98) are the only others to win it.
Sixth Player of the Year
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, Liberty
Laney-Hamilton is back for her first regular-season action since Game 5 of the 2024 WNBA Finals. She played a pivotal role on that championship squad, and her absence proved a hindrance to their repeat hopes a year ago. The knee injury she sustained at Unrivaled also began an unraveling of health problems for New York.
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The 2020 Most Improved Player winner will come off the bench on a loaded Liberty team, something she hasn’t done since her first years in the league. Health could be an issue, but former starters as a sixth woman are always a good preseason bet.
Cameron Brink, Sparks
Sparks general manager Raegan Pebley was happy at media day that she wasn’t fielding as many Brink questions, because the 2024 second overall pick was coming into training camp healthy this time around. Brink played 15 games her rookie year before sustaining an ACL injury and easing her way back into playing 19 games a year ago.
She’s a shot-blocking machine (1.8 bpg) who needs to reel in the fouling, but will play prominently off the bench on a team starting All-Stars Nneka Ogwumike and Dearica Hamby.
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Chennedy Carter, Aces
Carter is the oddsmakers’ favorite to win this award. She’s an electric scorer averaging 17.5 points per game for Chicago when she last played in the WNBA in 2024. While overseas, she still poured in big numbers, and if Jewell Loyd slots back into a starting role in Las Vegas, Carter could become the most productive scoring sixth woman of the group. Five of the last seven awards have landed in Las Vegas.
Naz Hillmon, Dream,
Hillmon could become the fourth player to win in back-to-back seasons since the award was introduced in 2007. DeWanna Bonner (Phoenix, 2009-11), Allie Quigley (Chicago, 2014-15) and Dearica Hamby (Aces, 2019-20) are the others.
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Her eligibility might hinge on how long Brionna Jones is out after undergoing right knee surgery in the offseason.
Coach of the Year
There are typically two camps when it comes to Coach of the Year voting. The first is the leader of one of the league’s best teams — usually the No. 1 overall seed. The second is a coach whose team exceeded expectations or performed significantly better than the year prior.
The latter is how voting broke down the past two seasons. Minnesota’s Cheryl Reeve won in 2024 when the Lynx finished second, despite middling preseason projections. Natalie Nakase is the reigning winner by taking expansion Golden State to the playoffs in its inaugural season, a first for the league.
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The top contenders in the exceeding expectations category this year would be Sandy Brondello, the 2014 winner now at expansion Toronto; Lynne Roberts in Los Angeles; and Dallas’ Jose Fernandez. Or a coach who surprises everyone.
Three-time Aces champion Becky Hammon, Dream second-year leader Karl Smesko, and Fever head coach Stephanie White, who won with Connecticut in 2022, are likely to helm top-four squads. New York Liberty first-year head coach Chris DeMarco is also in this camp.
