Atlanta Dream Forward Naz Hillmon Wins Sixth Player Of The Year

Although the Atlanta Dream were bounced from the playoffs after losing a best of three series to the Caitlin Clark-less Indiana Fever, the team’s best regular season record since they ousted former team owner and MAGA sycophant Kelly Loeffler, was rewarded with hardware for forward Naz Hillmon.

Hillmon received 44 of 72 votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters, beating out one of the Studbudz, Minnesota Lynx guard Natisha Hiedeman, who received 22 votes, Hiedeman’s teammate, Lynx forward Jessica Shepard, who received four votes, and the Seattle Storm’s rookie phenom Dominique Malonga and Phoenix Mercury guard Sami Whitcomb, who each received a vote apiece.

Per the WNBA’s press release, since she was named the Kia WNBA Sixth Player of the Year, Hillmon will receive an additional bonus of $5,150 and a trophy that has been specially designed to commemorate the achievement.

Hillmon, who has been a critical piece of the Dream’s offense under the direction of first-year head coach Karl Smesko, put up 8.6 points and 6.2 rebounds a game for the Dream and buried 53 three-pointers after only totaling one three in her three previous seasons.

Smesko, to be sure, is a big part of the reason the Dream won 30 games, both the most in franchise history and the most for a rookie head coach. The other reason is that the Dream’s accelerated rebuild, led by its 2022 draft picks Rhyne Howard and Naz Hillmon and trade acquisition turned MVP candidate Allisha Gray, came together seamlessly.

Smesko’s philosophy, as he told The Athletic, is simple.

“I try to be careful not to overcomplicate things too much. Let the best players in the world play, teach them how they can utilize their skills a little bit better to even become more efficient with their talents. We’re not the only team that’s capable of going on a run and winning this. So somebody’s gonna play really well, (and) you’re gonna have to probably make your own breaks a couple (of) times. But we definitely have a team that’s capable of winning the whole thing,” Smesko said.

While they may have fallen short of their overarching goal, Hillmon’s emergence has been a major key for the direction of the franchise, as general manager Dan Padover said in a press release.

“Naz embodies everything we want the Atlanta Dream to stand for — toughness, consistency and growth,” Dream general manager Padover noted. “Her ability to embrace any role and make winning plays has elevated not only her own game, but our entire team. Credit also goes to Karl and our coaching staff for helping take Naz’s game to another level and putting her in positions to thrive.”

In the WNBA, the only requirement for Sixth Player of the Year is to come off the bench in more games than a player starts, and Hillmon came off the bench for 61% of the team’s games, in 27 of the team’s 44 games, she was used as a bench player. She set a new Dream record with 150 consecutive appearances, good for the third-longest active streak in the league.

According to a press release from the Atlanta Dream, Hillmon was also named The Associated Press Sixth Player of the Year, marking the first time that an Atlanta Dream player has won either or both of the sixth player end-of-season awards.

Hillmon ranked second overall in the WNBA in plus-minus (+7.6 per game, +335 total), and also led the Dream in another advanced rating, net rating swing (+13.4). The Dream also went 5-0 when she scored 15 or more points, which further underscores her value to one of the league’s brightest teams.

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