WNBA general managers picked A'ja Wilson as the top choice to win the 2026 Kia WNBA MVP award, giving the reigning MVP 60% of the vote in a survey that also put the Las Vegas Aces at the front of the championship picture. Wilson was also the top answer for the player who forces opposing coaches to make the most adjustments, taking 60% of that vote as well.
Breanna Stewart finished second in the MVP voting with 27%, while Caitlin Clark and Allisha Gray also received votes. The Aces were favored to repeat as Finals winners, drawing 40% of the vote, as general managers handed out answers across 42 questions in the annual survey.
The survey arrives as the league enters its 30th season and faces expansion and a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, two forces that are likely to shape how far the current pecking order can hold. The general managers who took part could not vote for their own team or personnel, which gives the results a sharper read on how rival front offices see the league.
That view still starts with Wilson. Last year’s GM survey MVP choice was Napheesa Collier, who drew 67% of the vote in 2025, but the balance has shifted back toward the Las Vegas star this year. Wilson has remained central to the Aces' run of success, a span that has been dissected in detail in recent coverage of the Kelsey Plum trade, Wilson's text and why the Aces kept winning, and she also continues to draw attention off the court, including as part of the A'ja Wilson 2026 Met Gala host committee spotlight.
The one future-facing answer that cut through the rest came in the franchise question, where Paige Bueckers was the top choice to sign when starting a team today with 33% of the vote. That contrast — Wilson as the present standard and Bueckers as the preferred foundation — is the clearest sign of how GMs view the league's immediate elite and its next generation at the same time.
For now, though, the message from the general managers is plain: the Aces are still the team to beat, and Wilson is still the player who most changes what everyone else has to do.
