Kiah Stokes Is My Rookie of the Year

With the WNBA regular season over, my awards ballot was due promptly to the league at 1 PM on Monday afternoon. Many of the choices were difficult to make.

Rookie of the year wasn’t. Kiah Stokes won the award easily this season.

This is to take nothing away from several other significantly talented candidates, and the league added a number of players who look like they’re going to be contributors, even stars, in the years to come.

But compare Kiah Stokes to the best of the runners-up, Jewell Loyd, and the difference is stark.

Loyd is a future All Star in this league. The inherent pleasure of watching her get to the basket, as she did virtually at will in the second half of the season, or use her length to shoot over an opposing defender, and it’s immediately apparent why she came out of school a year early, and was drafted first virtually by acclimation.

Stokes, this year, was better.

Let’s start on the offensive end. Loyd, playing alongside Sue Bird, played off the ball for much of the season. Her three-point shot wasn’t overly efficient, but her two-point field goal percentage of 44.9 percent was solid, and she converted her free throws at a 90.7 percent clip. So she scored 10.7 points per game in 25.9 minutes per game. Decent, but not dominant as evidenced by her PER of 14.0 and 95 individual ORating.

As for Stokes, she shot far less often than Loyd, but when she did so, she generally converted, with a 55.4 percent rate from two. Her 11.1 percent usage rate brought down the overall value of this, but her PER still topped Loyd’s, checking in at 15.3.

And that’s the amazing part, because Loyd’s entire argument is on the offensive end. Defensively, Kiah Stokes has been the second-best player in the league, deferring only to Brittany Griner. One can even make an argument she’s been better, going purely be DRating. (I will not be making that argument, for the record.)

But Stokes, per DRating, leads Loyd, 90-105. Stokes finished second in the league in blocked shots. She finished in the top ten in the league in both total and defensive rebounds, and she didn’t even start in 28 of her 34 games. She did finish, though, almost always on the court down the stretch in close games. And she further allowed Tina Charles the freedom to head for the high post, improving New York’s offense even more.

Win shares? Stokes is at 3.6. Loyd is at 1.0. It’s a blowout.

The Liberty won 23 games. The Storm won 10 games. I think that’s a lousy, broad way to look at value, but even by that measure, Stokes leads Loyd.

There are two things Loyd has going for her when it comes to the voting. One is that generally, people believe Loyd will be the better player. They thought so when she was drafted first overall, Stokes falling to 11th, and they still think so. It wouldn’t even surprise me—Loyd is deeply impressive to watch and I expect will get even better from here, while it’s hard to imagine Stokes improving defensively from this already high point. Then again, her offense has improved as the season’ wore on, and maintaining this level defensively while becoming a true two-way threat would make Stokes a top-ten player in the league.

The other is valuing offense over defense, where the measurements are more precise and generally accepted. But it is impossible to watch Stokes play—to see her, as a rookie, anticipate the play, possession after possession, and not be impressed. She is a huge reason why the Liberty were the best regular season team in the WNBA, and deserves the award.

Briefly, two other rookies who deserve mention: Brittany Boyd, Stokes’ teammate, actually finished just ahead of Stokes in DRating, second in the league to LaToya Sanders. Her steal percentage topped the league. Her assist percentage easily led all rookies, and was seventh in the league. Accordingly, her PER of 19.0 topped both Stokes and Loyd. But her limited minutes—just 14.4 per game, or roughly half the number played by Stokes and Loyd—limited her Win Shares to just 1.7, half of Stokes, though ahead of Loyd. She was an enormous loss for the Liberty with her wrist injury, though, and is absolutely ready to be a star in this league.

Natalie Achonwa of the Indiana Fever combined a third-place finish in the league in true shooting percentage with solid work on the defensive boards, a deft passing touch and a handful of blocked shots to become one of the most important members of the Fever. Tamike Catchings told me at the all star game this year that the next time they hold one (in 2017, the Olympics eliminates a 2016 game), she expects Achonwa to be there. So do I.