This may be our last WNBA Tuesday entry for awhile, but it’s time to wrap up the 2026 season—and what a season it was! The Golden State Valkyries made history with a championship in just their second year as a true expansion team, and it defied a lot of logic and math in the process … kind of. But that’s neither here nor there, until the last award on this list. It’s time to see if we agreed with the voters on this campaign’s four major awards. We disagree with these people a lot, so let’s look at it all.

2026 WNBA MVP: A’ja Wilson, C, Las Vegas (original, confirmed)

Here we go again: Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson (9.4 Win Shares, 32.4 Player Efficiency Rating) won the MVP vote again, for the third season in a row and the fifth time in the last seven years. She’s that good, really. The second-best player in Win Shares was Golden State guard Veronica Burton (7.5), and the next-best effort in PER was Indiana Fever center/forward Aliyah Boston (24.1). Those are huge margins separating Wilson from everyone else. This should have been unanimous, yo.

(For the record, the mediot darling finished 18th in Win Shares [5.0], behind two of her teammates, and seventh in PER [22.7], again third on her own team. Enough said, although you can never beat facts into a willfully ignorant person’s brain. Voting for the third-best player on the sixth-place team for MVP or the first team All League is just dumber than dumb can get.)

2026 WNBA ROTY: Olivia Miles, G, Minnesota (original, confirmed)

This vote was unanimous, of course; Minnesota Lynx G Olivia Miles (6.2 WS, 22.7 PER) won the ROTY nod, readily. Compare those numbers to the fifth-worst ROTY winner in league history: 3.0 WS, 18.8 PER. But we digress: Miles was a sensation in helping the Lynx to the best regular-season record in the WNBA, and even though she and her team faded a bit down the stretch, the regular-season brilliance cannot be denied. The Lynx really picked well with their gifted No. 2 pick.

2026 WNBA DPOY: Angel Reese, F, Atlanta (original); Shakira Austin, C, Washington (revised)

Well, we did a piece on her during the summer, and she ended up winning this award: Atlanta Dream F Angel Reese (3.4 Defensive Win Shares). She was the best of six players who finished the year with at least 3.0 DWS: however, there is a snag here. Her Dream teammate, G Rhyne Howard, finished with 3.2 DWS, and you know our rule about teammates. This also eliminates the Valkyries duo of Burton (3.1) and C Kiah Stokes (3.0). This explains why the Finals were a defensive battle.

Alas, this leaves us with two “real” finalists for this award: Washington Mystics C Shakira Austin (3.3) and Wilson (3.1) again. With the Aces winning three more games in the regular season than the Mystics, that means we give this nod to Austin, surprisingly enough. She finished with 7.6 defensive rebounds, 1.2 blocks, and 0.8 steals per game, as the Mystics claimed the No. 5 playoff seed with 28 victories. Her elevated game (up 1.5 DWS from the year before) were a big reason why this was so.

(Ironically, Austin was our ROTY pick in 2022, over vote winner Howard. Weird how some things come back around, eh?)

2026 WNBA FINALS MVP: Gabby Williams, F, Golden State (original, confirmed)

The Finals went seven games, so that means a player from either team could be on our short list here, as Valkyries F Gabby Williams won the vote. Overall, five players from Atlanta and Golden State finished the postseason with at least 1.5 WS: Williams (1.8), G Jordin Canada (1.7), Reese (1.7), Howard (1.5), and Stokes (1.5). With three of those players on the Dream, we look to the most-valuable player on the Valykries, and that is Williams. So we will confirm this vote. However …

We want to make it clear that the mediots all but ignored these four other players in their quest to create a “hero” narrative for mass consumption. With Atlanta actually outscoring Golden State in the seven games, it’s clear an argument could have been made for any of the five really, especially with the final game being tied so late in the fourth quarter. Yes, we agree Williams asserted her will in Game 7 unlike anyone else present, yet the whole series could have gone either way because of the quintet.

Context always helps put surface data in perspective, people—fuckin’ always.