Aces All-Star guard Jackie Young was named the WNBA’s 2022 Most Improved Player, the league announced Monday, receiving 32 of 56 votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters.
Young, the No. 1 pick in the 2019 WNBA draft, averaged career-highs in points (15.9), rebounds (4.4) and steals per game (1.4), and upped her three-point percentage from 25% in 2021 to 43.1% in 2022.
“When it came to threes, for some reason there was just like a mental block there, and I think it was just getting over that and trusting myself,” she told Sports Illustrated earlier this summer.
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First-year coach Becky Hammon, who was named the league’s Coach of the Year last week, pushed Young to be more of a threat from the outside when she was hired this past January. While playing in Australia this winter for the WNBL’s Perth Lynx, Young acted on the directive, working alongside WNBL teammate and Dallas Wings guard Marina Mabrey to improve her outside shot.
Jackie Young Learned to Trust Herself, and It’s Paying Off in Threes for the Aces
“Jackie’s one of those people; she wants to be efficient, she wants to always be helping the team, and that’s great,” Mabrey said. “But helping the team also means being confident no matter if the ball’s going in or not.”
This season, Young received her first Player of the Week honor and made her first All-Star appearance, starting in the July exhibition. She helped Las Vegas finish the regular season with the league’s best record and the most wins (26) in franchise history.
Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu finished second in the award voting, receiving 10 votes, while Mercury guard Sophie Cunningham received seven votes. Young’s Las Vegas teammate Kelsey Plum also received four votes.
The Aces dropped Game 1 of their semifinal series with Seattle on Sunday. Tipoff for Game 2 is set for 10 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
