{"id":452931,"date":"2026-10-01T07:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/452931\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T07:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:02:08","slug":"dallas-wings-forward-jessica-shepard-named-wnba-most-improved-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/452931\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings forward Jessica Shepard named WNBA Most Improved Player"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In her sixth WNBA season and first with the Wings, Shepard averaged career highs of 14.5 points, 11.1 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 31.7 minutes, up from 8.0 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 20.9 minutes with the Minnesota Lynx in 2025. Shepard received 29 of 74 votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters.<\/p>\n<p>She joined Atlanta Dream forward Angel\u00a0Reese as the only players to average a double-double this season. A starter in all 42 of her appearances, Shepard helped Dallas earn the No. 7 seed in the WNBA Playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Shepard ranked second in the WNBA in rebounds per game, fifth in field goal percentage (57.5) and 11th in assists per game. Her 467 rebounds were the second-highest single-season total in WNBA history, behind Reese\u2019s 521 in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Shepard recorded a league-leading six triple-doubles, tied for the second most in a season in WNBA history, after entering the season with one career triple-double. Her 25 double-doubles, up from 10 in 2025, were the fourth most in a single WNBA season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In her sixth WNBA season and first with the Wings, Shepard averaged career highs of 14.5 points, 11.1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,1638,155669],"class_list":["post-452931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-brief","tag-tp-jessica-shephard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}