Drama Around Breanna Stewart’s MVP Award
The WNBA announced on Tuesday that Liberty forward Breanna Stewart has received the 2023 MVP award, her second in her career.
Stewart, who moved to New York prior to the 2023 season, won the MVP in her first campaign with the Liberty after previously winning it in ’18 while playing for the Storm. She also joined Lauren Jackson, Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper, Elena Delle Donne, Candace Parker, and A’ja Wilson as the eighth player in WNBA history to receive the honor multiple times.
The Sun forward Alyssa Thomas placed second with 23 votes, while Aces center A’ja Wilson—the ’22 MVP—grabbed 17 votes to take third. The 29-year-old won 20 of the panel’s first-place votes. The five-time All-Star’s latest hardware follows his selection to the WNBA All-Defensive First Team for this season. Stewart was given a boost by her 23 second-place votes, compared to Thomas’s 12 votes.
The fact that Stewart won the MVP this year is only the second time in league history that the runner-up received the majority of first-place votes. In 2005, Jackson earned fewer first-place votes (16) than Swoopes (20).
With a scoring average of 23 points per game, Stewart came in second. In 40 games during the regular season, she also ranked third in rebounding (9.3), fourth in blocks (1.57), third in minutes (34.1), and ninth in steals (1.45). Stewart’s contributions helped the Liberty win the second-most games in a season in WNBA history and secure the No. 2 seed in the postseason.
In the WNBA semifinals on Tuesday, New York will play Game 2 against the Sun in an effort to avenge their round-one sweep of the Mystics. Game 1 of the best-of-five series saw Connecticut upset New York, 78-63.
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