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It’s time to predict the WNBA award winners. We’ve taken a look at the Rookie of the Year, Sixth Player of the Year and Most Improved Player.
So, who will be the Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) in 2024?
A’ja Wilson (Las Vegas Aces)
It’s been A’ja Wilson’s league for the past two seasons, and the rest of us have just been here to witness it. She’s won every award imaginable, from Finals MVP to regular season MVP to WNBA titles to back-to-back DPOY awards.
Offensively, Wilson has been a juggernaut; defensively, she’s been as inevitable as death, with preventative measures being the only counters.
You might try to make her work more on both ends of the floor and force her to defend the perimeter more, but she’s comfortable with it all. In the end, if you even get a shot up, she will swat it into the stands. She had a league-leading 89 rejections in 2023 and likely will produce similar numbers in 2024.
Wilson undoubtedly will be a frontrunner for the award, but having won it twice, will voter fatigue set in? Can someone else take it from her?
Alyssa Thomas (Connecticut Sun)
Alyssa Thomas has been the runner-up for DPOY for the last two seasons. Will this be the season she can best Wilson and be the best defender in the WNBA?
If she continues to be a defensive Swiss Army knife—guarding all positions well, keeping her steal numbers up and leading Connecticut to success—she’ll have as good a chance as anyone at winning the award.
Brittney Sykes (Washington Mystics)
The previous winner and runner-up were both bigs, but the next candidate is a guard named Brittney Sykes.
She makes her living as a defensive irritant on the perimeter. She’s elite at defending ball handlers and can keep up with the best guards in the W. She plays with a physicality few can match. She embraces the contact, bumping players, fighting over screens and denying the ball when guarding on the wing.
Sykes is the kind of player who gets just as excited forcing a turnover as she does hitting a corner 3-pointer. If anything, the turnover might fire her up more than the made basket. A defender like her is a requirement for any team wanting to win a championship, and the Mystics are fortunate to have her. Few guards defend as well as she does, and if she has another stellar defensive year, she will be in DPOY conversation at the end of the season.
Closing thoughts
Wilson will be favored, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that she’ll win. Other players might step up and make noise, like the Atlanta Dream’s Jordin Canada or the New York Liberty’s Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. With so many talented defenders, it will not be surprising if a new player gets crowned DPOY by the season’s end.
However, you’ll have to take the award from Wilson to get it, and she’s proven that will not be easy.