The race for the WNBA’s Most Improved Player award often sparks intense debate among analysts, fans, and voters alike, serving as a testament to the league’s rapid talent development and player evolution. For this season’s honors, the ballot ultimately narrowed down to three compelling finalists: Washington Mystics center Shakira Austin, Dallas Wings forward Jessica Shepard, and Portland Fire guard Carla Leite. Each of these athletes has proven indispensable to their respective rosters, displaying a leap in impact that vastly eclipses their production from the previous year. While all three undeniably warrant serious consideration and possess championship-caliber dedication to their craft, the responsibility of casting a ballot required weighing distinct paths of progression, statistical growth, and team dynamics.
Navigating the nuances of an awards ballot meant pouring over a mountain of data, team success metrics, and individual skill expansion. After significant deliberation and careful back-and-forth, the choice ultimately favored Carla Leite, whose transformation from a bench spark plug into a franchise cornerstone captured the essence of what the Most Improved Player award represents. However, understanding why this decision was so difficult requires examining the remarkable cases put forward by all three finalists, each of whom charted a profoundly different route to stardom.
Jessica Shepard’s Most Improved Player Case
Jessica Shepard’s journey to becoming a WNBA All-Star with the Dallas Wings is one of the most inspiring storylines of the season. Just a year ago, Shepard was known primarily as a reliable, albeit limited, backup big for the Minnesota Lynx. Her transition to Dallas unlocked a massive offensive and playmaking expansion that fundamentally altered the trajectory of the Wings.
Her statistical jump across the board is undeniable and hard to ignore. Shepard saw her scoring output surge from 8 points per game last year to 14.3 points per contest, representing a stellar 6.3-point increase. On the glass, she evolved into a dominant presence, pulling down 10.9 rebounds per game compared to 7.3 the previous season, a jump of 3.6 boards. Perhaps most impressively for a frontcourt player, her playmaking blossomed, with her assists rising from 2.6 to 5.1 per game—an increase of 2.5 assists that showcased her high basketball IQ and ability to facilitate from the high post or block.
This dramatic uptick in responsibility naturally brought minor fluctuations in shooting efficiency. Shepard averaged 57.9% from the field, which, while still exceptionally efficient by league standards, represented a slight dip from her 63.8% clip in 2025. Furthermore, elite defense has not historically been the centerpiece of Shepard’s scouting report, and that remains an area where she can continue to develop in the seasons ahead. Nevertheless, it is impossible to dissect the Dallas Wings’ 2026 turnaround without placing Shepard’s high-impact free agency signing at the absolute center of the conversation. Her ability to shoulder a heavy nightly workload completely transformed the identity of the Dallas frontcourt.
Shakira Austin’s Most Improved Player Case
Unlike players who switched franchises or stepped into entirely new starting roles, Shakira Austin entered this season with familiar expectations as the entrenched starting center for the Washington Mystics. Yet, rather than plateauing, Austin found another gear entirely, translating additional floor time into elite, two-way dominance.
Austin’s playing time increased by a modest 6.5 minutes per game, moving from 23 minutes up to 29.5. However, her production scaled at a rate that far outstripped that extra playing time. She boosted her scoring from 12.7 points to 17 points per game and raised her rebounding numbers from 6.4 to 9.4 per contest. Her passing also ticked upward, moving from 1.8 to 2.6 assists per game.
What truly sets Austin’s candidacy apart from some of her peers is her simultaneous leap in efficiency. While many players see their shooting percentages drop when their offensive usage and scoring volume increase, Austin moved in the opposite direction. She improved her overall field goal percentage from 46.5% to 49.1%, a solid 2.6% jump. More astonishingly, she transformed her perimeter shooting, elevating her three-point accuracy from a meager 13.3% to a highly respectable 32.7%, marking an incredible 19.4% improvement that forced defenses to respect her outside the paint.
Beyond her offensive growth, Austin anchored the Mystics’ elite defensive unit, which finished the season ranked as the third-best defense in the entire league. Her defensive impact is further underscored by holding opponents to a 49.7% field goal percentage, standing out as a premier rim protector and defensive anchor.
Carla Leite’s Most Improved Player Case
The most explosive narrative of growth, however, belongs to Carla Leite. During the previous campaign with the Golden State Valkyries, Leite served primarily as an energetic, albeit restricted, bench spark plug, logging roughly 17.2 minutes per game. While she provided flashes of dynamic play, she was not asked to be a primary offensive option on a deeply talented Valkyries squad, and her perimeter shooting was virtually non-existent.
Following her move to the Portland Fire, Leite firmly established herself as the undisputed franchise player of the organization. Her scoring numbers skyrocketed from 7.2 points to 16 points per game, while her assists more than tripled in quality and frequency, jumping from 2 to 6.3 per game.
The most jaw-dropping aspect of Leite’s breakout campaign, however, remains her historic leap in efficiency. Last year, she struggled to find her footing as an outside shooter, connecting on just 38.7% of her total field goals and a dismal 17.3% from beyond the arc. This season, those numbers underwent a staggering metamorphosis. Leite converted 46.3% of her field goals while bumping her three-point percentage all the way up to 40%, representing an almost incomparable leap in offensive reliability.
In addition to her sheer statistical expansion, Leite proved to be lethal in high-pressure situations. She carried the Fire to multiple hard-fought victories in crunch time, displaying a clutch gene that culminated in a stellar performance against her former Valkyries squad.
When evaluating all three candidates visually and analytically through metrics like Player Efficiency Rating—the all-in-one per-minute productivity metric created by sports analyst John Hollinger—the sheer magnitude of Leite’s improvement in scoring, assists, and shooting efficiency edges out the rest of the field.
The primary critique leveled against Leite’s Most Improved Player campaign is team success; both Austin and Shepard played pivotal roles in anchoring established playoff contenders, whereas the Fire’s overall record lagged behind. For voters who strictly prioritize postseason representation, that factor carries substantial weight. However, for specific accolades like Rookie of the Year and Most Improved Player, the traditional requirement of team success is often weighed differently by evaluators.
While Austin held a distinct edge as a player who excelled within an existing role rather than adjusting to a new franchise—an advantage shared by Shepard and Leite, who both moved to new organizations and assumed expanded starter responsibilities—precedent suggests that changing teams should not be held against a candidate. For instance, Veronica Burton secured the award nearly unanimously in the previous season while also benefiting from a fresh start with a new organization and her first consistent run as a starter. Ultimately, weighing the historic nature of Leite’s shooting leap, her playmaking explosion, and her ascension to a true franchise cornerstone made the final selection lean toward the Portland guard in a remarkably competitive field.