There were no real surprises when it came to the top of the WNBA awards list. Indiana’s Caitlin Clark was named the unanimous AP Rookie of the Year despite some in the media claiming she had actual competition for the award, and Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson was unanimously, and rightfully, named league MVP.
When humans are involved in the process of voting, however, mistakes are made and there was an egregious error that included Chicago rookie Angel Reese and the vote for league MVP.
One voter elected to cast a fourth-place vote for Reese to win WNBA MVP.
This is by no means a shot at Reese, who is a very good player, but for someone to give her a fourth-place vote in an award given to the WNBA’s best player is categorically insane. It’s so outrageously ridiculous that you don’t have to put on your tin-foil hat to think that this voter only placed the fourth-place MVP vote for Reese to just get people talking and further divide fans on social media.
If that was the voter’s goal, well, mission accomplished.
Reese led the WNBA in rebounding with 13.1 per game as well as blocks with 2.6 per game, but leading those categories doesn’t even come close to qualifying to finish fourth in MVP voting. We’re talking about a player in Reese who shot under 40% from the field when the vast majority of her field goal attempts come at the rim. She shot under 50% from within five feet of the basket.
Her 13.6 points per game accompanied with an injury that kept her out of the last few regular season games for Chicago should disqualify her from even being thought of in the MVP conversation.
Bias constantly exists in sports, but voting Reese fourth in MVP voting is a level of bias that’s hard to even comprehend.
While Reese has undoubtedly helped grow interest in the WNBA to some degree this season, this fourth-place vote does nothing but open her up for more criticism and take attention off of Wilson, who is without question the best female basketball player on the planet at the moment.