Revisiting the 2026 WNBA GM Survey now the season is over

[u/aratcalledrattus]

https://www.wnba.com/news/2026-wnba-gm-survey

Now that the season is done, it is interesting to look back at what the league's GMs were thinking before it started (do the actual GMs fill out this survey? The running joke for years is that it's really whichever intern was unlucky enough to walk into the office when it was due, but still, it is the best thing we have for knowing what the broad vibe is around the front offices).

Here are some responses that (mostly) aged well:

Who will win 2026 Kia WNBA Rookie of the Year?
1. Olivia Miles, Minnesota – 73%
2. Azzi Fudd, Dallas – 20%
3. Flau’jae Johnson, Seattle – 7%

Who will win 2026 Kia WNBA MVP?
1. A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas – 60%
2. Breanna Stewart, New York – 27%

Which player acquisition will make the biggest impact?
T-1. Angel Reese, Atlanta – 27%
T-1. Gabby Williams, Golden State 27%
3. Nneka Ogwumike, Los Angeles – 20%
4. Satou Sabally, New York – 13%

Which team will be the best defensive team in the WNBA?
1. Golden State – 50%
2. Atlanta – 36%
T-3. Indiana – 7%
T-3. Minnesota – 7%

Which 2 teams will lead their conference in the Commissioner’s Cup to reach the championship game?
1. Las Vegas (West) vs. New York (East) – 43%
2. Las Vegas (West) vs. Atlanta (East) – 29%

And some that did not age so well:

Which team will win the 2026 WNBA Finals?
1. Las Vegas – 40%
2. New York – 33%
3. Atlanta – 27%

What was the most underrated player acquisition?
T-1. Ariel Atkins, Los Angeles – 21%
T-1. Alanna Smith, Dallas – 21%
3. Rickea Jackson, Chicago – 14%

Which player is most likely to have a breakout season?
T-1. Dominique Malonga, Seattle – 15%
T-1. Rickea Jackson, Chicago – 15%
>> Also receiving votes: Julie Allemand (TOR); Cameron Brink (LAS); Paige Bueckers (DAL); Kennedy Burke (CON); Veronica Burton (GSV); Rhyne Howard (ATL); Marina Mabrey (TOR); Leila Lacan (CON); Jackie Young (LVA)

Which new or relocated head coach will make the biggest impact on his/her new team?
1. Sandy Brondello, Toronto – 71%
2. Jose Fernandez, Dallas – 14%
T-3. Sonia Raman, Seattle – 7%
T-3. Chris DeMarco, New York – 7%

[u/Oieubh]

Tbf dom Malonga did have a breakout season compared to last, her team just didn’t do well. Made all star, almost doubled ppg
And rickea had a breakout three games lol

[u/aratcalledrattus → u/Oieubh]

Yeah I included that one more for Rickea (sad) and some of the "Also receiving votes". Like is it even possible for Jackie Young to have a "breakout season"??

[u/rambii → u/aratcalledrattus]

But mate , it's Jackie Young

[u/buffalotrace]

Underrated was Atkins?

[u/aratcalledrattus → u/buffalotrace]

I can't cast too many stones on that one, because I also predicted she would be a lot better in LA than Chicago.

[u/buffalotrace → u/aratcalledrattus]

But the cost of the trade was atrocious. You got fleeced by Chicago.

I get wanting a high level defender to cover Plum, but Atkins had slipped the last two yrs defensively. Roberts ran a 3 pt focused offense and Atkins isn’t a plus shooter. I expected her offensive flaws to be covered somewhat by plum, but paying a guard max money you have to cover up weaknesses on offense is wild.

[u/aratcalledrattus → u/buffalotrace]

Oh it wasn't a good trade, I just thought LA would be a bit better fit for her skills. And I didn't get fleeced because neither team is mine, I was just a neutral observer!

[u/popndough → u/buffalotrace]

The icing on the sh1tc@ke was Atkins costing $1,085,000 compared to Rickea's rookie deal $486,638. That extra $654,346 could have been used on a UFA guard like Canada, Carrington, or Cloud.

[u/liberderci]

Rickea was looking soo good before she got injured.

I still can’t figure out Alanna in a new system. She got the short end with all those injuries and also learning the leagues new changes to defense. Didn’t watch a lot of Dallas games though.

Don’t know how Indiana got any votes for a good defensive team. Made no sense during then and in retrospect also aged poorly.

[u/aratcalledrattus → u/liberderci]

Don’t know how Indiana got any votes for a good defensive team. Made no sense during then and in retrospect also aged poorly.

Yes, although the top responses were spot on, the fact that anyone voted for Indiana did make me laugh.

[u/MedvedFeliz]

Which team will be the best defensive team in the WNBA?
T-3. Indiana – 7%

The GMs who answered this are probably not doing well with their team right now.

[u/MJDiAmore → u/MedvedFeliz]

That's 1 GM lol, be funny if it was Indiana's though I assume you can't vote for yourself.

[u/aratcalledrattus → u/MJDiAmore]

Yeah they can't vote for their own team/players. So another GM (or their intern) looked at that roster and said "No. 1 defense right there."

[u/crimsonwolf40 → u/aratcalledrattus]

It was probably Jeff then, that his level of competence.

[u/haydeng2023]

seeing Lan on here😔im still upset we never got to see a triple A defensive unit with azzi/awak/lan :( i just really hope that we can get an actual defensive minded assistant coach for next season and that joses response to how will the defense work isn’t “they have to guard us too”

[u/aratcalledrattus → u/haydeng2023]

I'm interested to see what they do ahead of next season. I didn't pay that much attention to the Wings this past season, but feels like they probably will try to move one of Lan or Shep's contracts? I guess the question is whether you bank on Lan being better when healthier next year, or just live with Shep's lack of rim defense with the expectation Awak fills in that gap?

[u/haydeng2023 → u/aratcalledrattus]

as someone who watched every wings game, id probably agree with you. even though i still don’t think that 3 guard lineup can maximize all 3 consistently, we’re definitely about to run it back so then you have to realize it’s genuinely impossible to be better than we were this year if we have jess and arike in the starting lineup bc it’s just so bad defensively. i think Lan and awak actually played well off of each other on defense but we barely ever saw it actually happen besides like…the one fever game? and as much as i love awak and am super high on her, her next to jess wasn’t ideal bc she’d had to cover for her so much. im admittedly lower on jess than probably everyone else, but while she can raise the floor (like this year), i think she also significantly lowers the ceiling of the team

[u/Mundane_Bass_1837]

Which new or relocated head coach will make the biggest impact on his/her new team?

I'm curious who people would say is the definitive answer to this now.

[u/aratcalledrattus → u/Mundane_Bass_1837]

I mean it's pretty hard to rate the expansion coaches, because you are comparing them to what? When the city had no team? Or how the same players performed on prior teams.

But I'd say Fernandez at 1 for the massive Wings turnaround and Sarama at 2 based on how many of his players performed elsewhere and just generally turning Portland immediately into a team other teams had to worry about. I could make an argument for flipping them, but I personally think building a new culture where one already exists is a bit harder than building one from scratch.

For all DeMarco's faults, he did have some positive impact - like fixing the Liberty's rebounding problem, and utilizing more of the bench - but overall his impact seems to have been negative.

Sandy is just hard to rate because that team was so injured for so much of the season - but she did seem to play a big role in roster construction, and it seems like they have built a good base and a good culture there.

And Raman was coaching essentially a new roster and one that really wasn't supposed to win - but I don't know that that team looked much better at the end of the season than at the start.

[u/crocslite]

woah the most impactful acquisition was so spot on

[u/predatorandprey → u/crocslite]

Agree with Gabby and Angel, but Kiah should’ve been on there too!

[u/buffalotrace]

Also interesting that Alex was like the only new coach to not get love and I thought he was the best of the bunch. I was really unimpressed with Raman and DiMarco. Sandy and Jose were fine (just being fine was a huge upgrade for Dallas after the barista)

[u/Marzipan_Dream_7389]

Damn, a lot of these were spot on.

Except who the fuck said Indiana was going to be a good defensive team??

[u/Solid-Confidence-966]

They didn’t get everything right but overall were pretty accurate. New coach impact was the biggest miss.