WNBA: General Manager survey favors Las Vegas Aces to win championship

Breanna Stewart favored to win Most Valuable Player

Las Vegas Aces center Carolyn Swords (4) grabs a rebound in front of Seattle Storm forward Breanna Stewart (30) during the first half of Game 1 of basketball's WNBA Finals Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, in Bradenton, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) (Chris O'Meara, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The Las Vegas Aces were picked to win the WNBA championship and the Seattle Storm’s Breanna Stewart was selected as the favorite for the WNBA Most Valuable Player Award, according to the 2021 WNBA GM Survey.

In the 18th edition of the poll, the WNBA’s 12 general managers assessed the league’s best teams, players, coaches, offseason moves and more.

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The complete results of the exclusive survey were posted on the leagues official website -- 58 percent of the general managers predicted a championship for the Aces, who earned the No. 1 seed in the playoffs last season before falling to the Storm in the WNBA Finals.

The Chicago Sky and Washington Mystics tied as the second choice with 17 percent each.

Chicago, which signed two-time league MVP Candace Parker as a free agent, topped all vote-getters as the Eastern Conference team that will record the most regular season wins.

Stewart, the 2018 WNBA MVP and reigning WNBA Finals MVP, received 67 percent of the votes as the player most likely to win the MVP award in 2021.

The Sky’s Parker and Courtney Vandersloot, the Mystics’ Tina Charles and the Aces’ A’ja Wilson, the reigning MVP, each received one vote.

Parker was viewed as the acquisition who will make the biggest impact in 2021, topping Natasha Howard, who joined the New York Liberty after a trade from Seattle.

The Liberty, which acquired three-time WNBA champion Howard and two-time champ Sami Whitcomb from Seattle and signed 2020 WNBA Most Improved Player Betnijah Laney, earned 50 percent of the vote as the team that had the best offseason restructuring of its roster through free agency and trade.

New York, which looks forward to the return of Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2020 who missed the final 19 games of her rookie season due to injury, also was chosen as the most improved team, with Atlanta ranking second.

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