On the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, host Chelsea Leite is joined by Noa Dalzell of SB Nation to make some WNBA award picks. They debate choices for MVP, Rookie of the Year, and more!
To start out the show, Leite and Dalzell discuss the fact that Dalzell has a vote this year in the WNBA awards, and what that means to her. “I’m excited to have a vote,” Dalzell says. “This is my first year having one, and when the league first asked me, I was like oh, this is so fun.” But Dalzell then explains how having a vote became more complicated. “I think what I realized is a lot of it is group-think,” Dalzell says. “… Nobody wants to be the one to stray away from the public and the common opinion.”
Later on, Leite and Dalzell talk about the running for the Rookie of the Year award. “I think Paige [Bueckers] has it locked,” Dalzell says. “[But] in a normal year, Sonia Citron would be Rookie of the Year. … Both of these women, Paige Bueckers and Sonia Citron, have been really efficient.”
To close out the show, Leite and Dalzell converse about a few other awards, like Coach of the Year. Dalzell explains how her two choices — Cheryl Reeve of the Minnesota Lynx and Natalie Nakase of the Golden State Valkyries — each have good reasons to win. “Cheryl’s probably the best coach in the WNBA,” Dalzell says. But she gives Nakase her flowers, too. “They’ve had so many injuries, their one All-Star went down,” Dalzell says about the Valkyries, “but they continue to find a way to not just win games but to be in every game, and be competitive.”
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