{"id":922704,"date":"2026-10-06T11:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922704\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T11:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:26:12","slug":"janelle-salaun-wins-wnba-sixth-player-of-the-year-award-in-unanimous-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922704\/","title":{"rendered":"Janelle Sala\u00fcn Wins WNBA Sixth Player of the Year Award in Unanimous Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Janelle Sala\u00fcn is playing her part, as the Golden State forward earned 2026 WNBA Sixth Player of the Year by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnba.com\/news\/janelle-salaun-named-sixth-player-of-the-year\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">first-ever unanimous vote<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sala\u00fcn averaged 12.7 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.2 assists across 40 appearances off the bench. Her efforts helped the Valkyries to a <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/golden-state-valkyries-2026-wnba-playoffs-home-court-dallas-wings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">No. 2 playoff seed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her cumulative plus-minus (+160) outpaced all reserves with a minimum of 20 appearances. She additionally set single-season bench records for points (509), 3-pointers (93), and 10-point games. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Sixth Player of the Year award spotlights the season\u2019s best bench player \u2014 a role the <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/china-vs-france-fiba-world-cup-2026\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"39852\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">French star<\/a> is embracing after starting much of last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI really like this group \u2014 a great bench; we have a <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/valkyries-vs-sun-wnba-game-recap\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"39006\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">great second unit<\/a>,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be possible without you guys, so thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Janelle Sala\u00fcn is playing her part, as the Golden State forward earned 2026 WNBA Sixth Player of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[317577,317578,49,48,1612,21319,82,630],"class_list":["post-922704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-2026-wnba-awards","tag-2026-wnba-sixth-player-of-the-year","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-janelle-salaun","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}