Is 2026 WNBA All-Star Voting Rigged? 7 Things You Need to Know

Introduction

All-Star voting is supposed to be a scoreboard — a clean read on who earned it. In 2026, the WNBA's All-Star selection process left more questions than answers. A team with one of the league's best records got zero starters. The league's assist leader didn't make the roster at all, starters or reserves. And the reserve vote, revealed days later, looked a lot like a quiet correction of the starter vote. Something doesn't add up. Here are seven things about 2026 WNBA All-Star voting that are worth a closer look — who made it, who got left off, and what the process itself might be rewarding.

1. No Atlanta Dream Starters, Then a Sudden Reversal

The Atlanta Dream held a 12-7 record when All-Star starter voting closed — one of the better marks in the league. Yet not a single Dream player was named a starter. Days later, when the reserves (selected entirely by head coaches) were announced, three Dream players suddenly made the cut: Rhyne Howard, Angel Reese, and Allisha Gray.

Was that a legitimate coaches' read on talent the fan/media vote missed, or does it expose a gap between who's actually performing and who the starter-vote process rewards? Worth sitting with.

2. The Alyssa Thomas Shutout

Alyssa Thomas leads the entire WNBA in assists at 8.3–8.4 per game. She's a six-time All-Star who finished third in MVP voting last season with numbers nearly identical to this year's. In 2026, she wasn't picked as a starter or a reserve — a total shutout. Her own head coach, Nate Tibbetts, called the reserve snub "extremely disappointing," adding that he sees Thomas among the top 10 to 15 players in the world, according to NBC Sports. Multiple national outlets, including CBS Sports, named her the single biggest snub of the entire selection process.

3. The Timing Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud

Here's the part that's harder to ignore. Thomas is also the player at the center of the June 24 incident in which she made contact with Caitlin Clark's throat during a Mercury-Fever game. The play was upgraded after the fact to a flagrant foul and Thomas was suspended one game for what the league called recklessly making contact with her fist. The fallout escalated well beyond the court: 11 members of the House Republican Study Committee sent a letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert demanding answers, and Thomas has said publicly that she's received death threats since the incident, per NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.

To be clear: there's no confirmed evidence linking the incident to her All-Star snub. But the league's assist leader going from six-time All-Star to zero All-Star recognition, in the same summer she became the center of a congressional letter and a suspension — the timing alone raises fair questions.

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4. The Other Snubs Piling Up

Thomas wasn't the only statistically strong player left home. Brittney Sykes posted a career-high 20.1 points per game and was called the biggest snub by multiple outlets before her case was complicated by a plantar fascia injury. Kahleah Copper averaged 20.6 points per game and was also left off despite elite scoring. Chelsea Gray, Veronica Burton, and Carla Leite all had statistical cases and stayed home too. That's a lot of production sitting outside Chicago's United Center on July 25.

5. The Surprise Selections Raising Eyebrows

On the flip side, a few selections surprised even close followers of the process. Dominique Malonga earned her first-ever All-Star nod as a second-year player — a pick that reportedly wasn't even on some analysts' master lists heading into the vote. Marina Mabrey became the first-ever All-Star in Toronto Tempo franchise history. Neither pick is a knock on the player — both are having strong seasons — but their selections raise a real question: what is the voting process actually optimizing for? Production? Storylines? Team representation? It's not entirely clear.

Angel Reese Makes WNBA History With 1,000 Rebounds: But the Flagrant Foul Call Raises Serious Questions

6. The Caitlin Clark Player-Vote Backlash

This one's controversial. Despite finishing second in fan voting and third in media voting — more than enough to lock a starting spot under the league's weighted formula (50% fan vote, 25% media vote, 25% player vote) — Clark was ranked just 11th among guards in the players' own vote. According to Sports Illustrated, that gap between how fans and media rank her and how her peers rank her sparked immediate reaction across the league, including from three-time champion Candace Parker. It's worth noting that WNBA players only vote for their top four guards each — so an 11th-place finish reflects how ballots were spread across the league, not a personal ranking every player gave her. Either way, the gap between public perception and locker-room perception is real, and it's not the first time it's shown up in Clark's All-Star voting history.

7. Angel Reese's Starter Snub

Angel Reese leads the entire league in rebounding at 12.3 per game and pulled in over 200,000 fan votes — a top-10 total in a format where fan voting counts for half the final score. Despite that, she didn't make the initial 10 starters, landing on the roster days later only as a reserve. Statistically, it's a hard result to square: a top-10 fan vote total in a format where fans control 50% of the outcome, and still no starting nod.

The 2026 WNBA All-Star Starters

For context, here's who did make the starting lineup: Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell (Fever), Paige Bueckers (Wings), Olivia Miles (Fire), A'ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Aliyah Boston, Natasha Howard, Jessica Shepard, and Gabby Williams. Notably, the Fever placed three players in the starting five — one more data point worth watching as this cycle's storylines play out. [Internal link: Full 2026 WNBA All-Star roster]

The Bottom Line

An All-Star roster is supposed to be a scoreboard for who earned it. In 2026, that scoreboard needed a correction within days, and the league's most talked-about player of the summer didn't make it onto the roster at all. You can lead the league in assists and still not be a reserve. You can lead the league in rebounds and pull a top-10 fan vote and still not start. Nothing here proves the fix was in — but the pattern is hard to look away from.

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