WNBA: Liberty’s Fiebich, Aces’ Hayes robust Sixth Participant candidates

Who has made the strongest case to be the WNBA’s Sixth Participant of the Yr for the 2024 season?

Is it a participant whose worth comes from her versatility, new to the WNBA however able to fulfilling a number of roles for her championship-chasing crew? Is it one whose elite athleticism enhances her championship-proven squad, offering a constant supply of scoring punch? Or, is it somebody whose 3-point capturing juices her crew’s offense, spacing the ground together with her willingness to fireside away from behind the arc?

Eric Nemchock particulars the contributions of the New York Liberty’s Leonie Fiebich, Cat Ariail expounds on the talents of the Las Vegas Aces’ Tiffany Hayes and Beckett Harrison highlights the impression of the Phoenix Mercury’s Sophie Cunningham.

Leonie Fiebich (New York Liberty)

Picture by Catalina Fragoso/NBAE through Getty Pictures

It’s been fairly a rookie season for Leonie Fiebich. Her rights had been despatched to New York through commerce final 12 months, however she didn’t make her WNBA debut till 2024. At 24 years previous, Fiebich has been regarded by worldwide basketball analysts as one of many world’s prime up-and-coming gamers, and whereas she’s been a family title for the German nationwide crew for a while now, she’s simply now getting the chance to showcase her skills in the USA.

Fiebich has shortly proven that she belongs. On a Liberty crew loaded with high-end expertise, Fiebich’s talent set makes her the final word complementary participant. Standing at 6-foot-4, she matches into the Liberty’s philosophy of fielding tall, switchable lineups, and he or she has one of many sweetest exterior photographs within the WNBA, pulling down 42.5 % of her 3-point makes an attempt. Fiebich is a pure scorer, however her off-ball prowess is much more pronounced on New York’s star-studded roster. Not many gamers at her peak additionally possess her gravity and capturing capacity.

Fiebich’s case for Sixth Participant of the Yr hinges largely on that malleability. The Liberty lose nothing when she enters the sport for beginning wing Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, and he or she’s stuffed in for Laney-Hamilton within the crew’s beginning lineup on a number of events when the 2023 All-Protection honoree was injured. That is when Fiebich has been at her finest, and when she’s actually exemplified a sixth participant to be relied upon. — Eric Nemchock

Tiffany Hayes (Las Vegas Aces)

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Tiffany Hayes is the WNBA’s most proficient off the bench participant, with an All-Star, All-Defensive and All-WNBA honor to her title. Whereas these previous achievements don’t impression her case for the league’s Sixth Participant of the Yr award in 2024, the harmful dynamism that helped her earn these plaudits does.

Popping out of a short-lived retirement from the WNBA to hitch the Aces roughly two weeks into the WNBA season, Hayes has provided the back-to-back defending champs the two-way athletic pop that outlined her days as a beginning participant and central piece for the Atlanta Dream. Along with her lightning-quick first step, she stays a relentless risk to interrupt down her defender and get to the ring, typically drawing a foul (and ending up on the courtroom) within the course of. That very same quickness permits her to affect the motion on the defensive finish, whether or not by locking down her task or creating disruptions off the ball.

Amongst gamers who’ve come off the bench for greater than half of their video games performed, Hayes leads in scoring (8.5 factors per recreation), with a major chunk of her factors coming off turnovers (2.0 per recreation) and/or within the paint (4.3 per recreation); she ranks second in each classes for bench gamers. She additionally has earned the second-most free throw makes an attempt per recreation (2.4) amongst certified reserves. Hayes thus presents a constant supply of off-the-bench offense, dependent not on her jumper falling however on her confirmed capacity to discover a solution to the bucket. Her consistency is mirrored in her scoring effectivity, as her true capturing proportion (60.8) and efficient subject purpose proportion (58.5) are the very best of her profession (disregarding the 2022 season when she solely performed 11 video games).

Twelve years right into a WNBA profession that she thought was completed, Hayes has seamlessly tailored to a brand new position, equipping the Aces with one other weapon of their quest for a third-straight championship. — Cat Ariail

Sophie Cunningham (Phoenix Mercury)

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Ongoing mediocrity in Phoenix could hamper Sophie Cunningham’s recognition, however she’s been a flamethrower off the bench for a Mercury crew that’s periodically struggled to attain. Of gamers who’ve come off the bench for not less than half the season, Cunningham leads the pack in minutes performed, 3-pointers made, offensive score, efficient subject purpose proportion and true capturing proportion. She’s second in bench factors to Tiffany Hayes, and prime 5 in assists, rebounds and steals. Like many good Sixth Participant of the Yr candidates, mockingly, her candidacy isn’t but assured as a result of she’s began a major quantity video games. Cunningham wants to return off the bench two extra instances in Phoenix’s final 4 video games with the intention to qualify.

Cunningham is going through an uphill battle to contend for the award on the seventh place Mercury. Voters have traditionally weighted crew success closely. It’s been a decade since a participant not on a top-five crew has received Sixth Participant of the Yr (Allie Quigley received it on the eighth-place Chicago Sky in 2014). Since 2019, each participant to win the award has been on a top-three crew. Historical past is at odds with Cunningham, however her numbers off the bench have been plain. — Beckett Harrison