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Lynx forward Alanna Smith, the anchor to Minnesota’s WNBA-best defense, is Co-Defensive Player of the Year with the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson, the league announced Thursday.
Smith and Wilson, the reigning league MVP, become the first pair to split the honor, both receiving 29 votes from the 72 media members who select the league’s end-of-season awards.
Smith, a 29-year-old Australian who is the de facto rim protector for the No. 1-seeded Lynx, is the third Minnesota player to win DPOY honors after teammate Napheesa Collier last year and Sylvia Fowles in 2016 and 2021. Collier also received two votes for the honor this season.
Smith, listed at 6-4, set a new franchise record in blocks in a season, with 80, and averaged a career-high 1.9 blocks per game — third-best in the league this year. She also added an average of 1.3 steals per game, quick to use her length and footwork to deflect a pass or force a jump ball for the Lynx, who led the league in defensive rating this year.
“I think she’s a defensive player of the year the way that she’s able to guard post players [and] guards,” Collier said during the regular season. “She is the anchor.”
Smith joined the the Lynx in 2023 as a free agent from Chicago, where she played one season after stops in Phoenix and Indiana. She was drafted No. 8 overall out of Stanford in 2019 and spent three seasons in Phoenix, battling injuries and facing limited minutes. She later caught Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve’s eye as a priority roster acquisition.
“From the first days with Lan, coaching her last year in training camp, what stuck out to me was just her movements instinctually made sense,” Reeve said. “She would cover for [a player] and communicate and and I remember feeling like, I trust whatever Lan does, whatever decision she makes.”
Smith also averaged 9.6 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game this regular season.
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