On Wednesday, the WNBA announced the schedule for its official 2023 end-of-season awards and has implemented a new process for the selection of the All-Defensive teams. The WNBA regular season concludes on Sept. 10 and on Sept. 11, the first of the awards, WNBA Peak Performers, will be announced.
There will be 12 end-of-season awards: All-WNBA Teams; Defensive Player of the Year; Most Improved Player; Most Valuable Player; Rookie of the Year; Sixth Player of the Year; Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award; All-Defensive teams; All-Rookie team; Coach of the Year; Basketball Executive of the Year; and the Peak Performers.
While the Basketball Executive of the Year honor is selected by the league’s general managers and the Peak Performers awards are presented to the regular-season statistical leaders, the remainder of the awards are voted on by a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters.
Additionally, voting for the All-Defensive teams will be conducted without regard to a player’s position.
“After consulting with our teams, we believe this change gives us an opportunity to simply honor the 10 most deserving defensive players,” said WNBA head of league operations Bethany Donaphin. “When we changed the All-WNBA team voting process last year, we noted how our game has evolved in terms of pace of play and spacing. The players have expanded their skill sets, and that is equally true on defense.”
The WNBA playoffs begin on Sept. 13 with all games broadcast on ESPN platforms.
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