Completing a ballot that helps determine who will start in the WNBA’s All-Star game is always an honor while simultaneously being an incredibly difficult process to complete. Every year I have done this, I have taken it down to the final hour before ballots are due and this year was no different.
To be clear, the media vote just counts as a 25% of the formula used to determine the starters alongside players’ vote, also 25% of the formula, and the very public fan vote that represents 50% of the league’s calculator to decide starters. The coaches fill in the gaps and vote on the reserves.
I compare this exercise to being a bit of a brain teaser that, at times, doesn’t allow for voters to be as consistent across their ballots. This is exactly why some media voters are very frustrated by how the league designates positions, something I have written about.
For instance, Rhyne Howard’s designation as a guard in particular led me down a road that might be shocking to some. Spoiler alert: I do believe Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell deserve to be All-Stars, but there aren’t enough guards slots available to include them in my ballot because I believe four other guards— including Howard who is designated in the guard group— have been better than those two.
This is not a black and white process, and it’s not one that I just judge on popularity either. If you enjoy large lists and notebook musings, then this will be a journey you might appreciate.
What informed my decision trees? What were all the emotions that all came with casting my vote? This is what you will read below. I’m going to begin with the locks and take you along my full process right up until 12 pm ET on Friday June 26, exactly an hour before ballots were due back to the league by 1pm.
The Locks: A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Paige Bueckers
How I began this process was by taking a sheet of scrap paper and listing out the potential All-Stars from each and every team. This is what I call my master list.
The teams included at the bottom of the standings including the Connecticut Sun, Seattle Storm, Chicago Sky and Phoenix Mercury weren’t going to get my consideration because these teams haven’t done a lot of winning and their win percentages are all below 40%. Winning matters when I make my selections.
Once I determined the master list which contained between 20 and 25 players, I needed to whittle this down. Enter the lock group, the players that should be shoo-ins based on how much these players are tied to their team’s winning.
A metric that helped me determine this was win shares, a statistic that estimates the total number of wins a player produces for their team through both their offensive and defensive performances. In descending order: Wilson, Stewart and Bueckers are all within the top eight of win shares via Her Hoop Stats.
Each of these players has averaged scoring at least 18 points per game and are also the engines that each of their respective teams run on. You take away one of these players from their teams and the flow is all wonky.
2026 body of work: Rhyne Howard, Natasha Howard, Olivia Miles and Jessica Shepard
This next group was determined mostly by a player’s 2026 body of work, which is something that I value when I put players on my ballot. 2026 WNBA All-Star is about how these players perform in the first half of the season, and so it’s an opportunity to reward players that might have been a surprise or who have taken a step forward.
Let’s begin with the Howards. Rhyne is an example of taking a huge step forward in her career. First of all she’s averaging the most points in her career (18.7) in addition to the best field goal percentage she’s posted in her four plus year career so far. While she does lead the league with 2.6 steals per game, her defensive activity and versatility cannot be quantified by simple stats. Also, the Dream have the second-best net rating amongst all teams.
Natasha’s pick and roll partnership with Miles has been absolutely vital to what the Lynx do and as a result she’s had her best scoring season since 2024, and has been the most efficient she’s ever been in her career with a 61.8 field goal percentage, which is second league wide for players who play over 20 minutes a game.
And then there’s Miles who is breaking records as a rookie and has emerged as the Lynx’s number one option with Napheesa Collier sidelined. She’s the head of the snake for the best team in the league.
Most points generated by a player in the first 15 games of their rookie season in WNBA history:
— Dan Falkenheim (@thefalkon) June 18, 2026
1. OLIVIA MILES (485)
She sits atop a pretty, pretty good list. No other rookie has generated more points through their first 15 games. (Excludes the 1997 season.) pic.twitter.com/E2NBw3AXPG
Shepard is the front-runner for most improved player as she has become the Wings’ clear second option behind Bueckers and has the second most win shares behind Wilson with 3.2. She has put up career bests in average points (14.6), rebounds (11.3) and assists (5.5) per game.
Back to my master list, where I circled both the players in the 2026 group in addition to those in the shoo-ins group. These were players that I had locked into my ballot and it was going to be very hard to change my mind on these ones. All right, so three plus four equals seven. Three more spots to decide, which takes me to my most difficult decisions.
A final three rollercoaster ride: Aliyah Boston, Jonquel Jones and Marina Mabrey
This takes me back to my master list where I judged the players once again by how they impacted winning, a similar exercise to how I developed the shoo-in group. I created a separate list from the master list which I will call my final spots list. This included around ten players for three spots. I know, I needed to whittle this down a bit more.
I decided that with it being late on Thursday night, I needed to quite literally sleep on how I would fill out the final three names. And so by the morning on Friday, it was decision time. I wrote out all the players I had locked in on a separate sheet of paper listing their teams and position types.
I hadn’t represented the Fever yet but thought that two guards were still ahead of both Clark and Mitchell which brought me to Aliyah Boston, someone who has gotten a ton of fan votes but also has really proven she’s expanded her game and become a versatile center rather than just a back-to-the basket one. She’s also averaging the most points in her career so far this season.
All right, two more. One more guard and a front court player. What’s funny is that I looked at Boston’s numbers and then looked at another center’s numbers and thought “huh, those aren’t too far off from one another.” Jonquel Jones right now has 2.7 win shares, ranking seventh overall and ranks second to Wilson in total +/- out of all centers across the league.
Two centers? Why not a wing? Gabby Williams was someone who I was very tempted to lock in instead of Jones, but in comparing their stats, Jones has contributed a little bit more to other categories than Williams does.
I was so ready to lock Kelsey Plum in that final guard spot when I remembered that her injury will keep her out for at least four weeks. As of this writing, All-Star weekend is officially four weekends away. It might be moot to vote Plum if she can’t play in it anyway.
I thought of a similar player who has had a career year and had to do a lot of the legwork without many other stars around her. Marina Mabrey came to mind. Also, the recency bias of watching her 53 point performance on Thursday night helped too. She became the third player to do that, scoring the most points in a single game and tied performances from Wilson and Liz Cambage. Those two have been All-Stars. It’s Mabrey’s turn.
All right, I went back to my electronic ballot, removed Plum and checked off Mabrey. That was it, no more changes and the over thinking was done. I pressed submit and took a giant sigh. I did it. My jitters could soothe with around an hour to spare before the submissions closed.
My honorable mentions were: Plum, Allisha Gray, Clark, Mitchell, Williams, Nneka Ogwumike and Angel Reese.
