{"id":602360,"date":"2026-04-23T21:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602360\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T21:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:42:23","slug":"aliyah-boston-celebrates-defensive-player-of-the-year-award-ahead-of-2026-wnba-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602360\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliyah Boston Celebrates Defensive Player of the Year Award Ahead of 2026 WNBA Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiana Fever<\/a> star Aliyah Boston<\/a> carries plenty of momentum heading into the 2026 WNBA<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old forward served as the anchor of a Fever squad gutted by injuries in 2025<\/a>. She averaged 15.0 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.2 steals across 44 games. Boston also earned All-WNBA Second Team and All-Defensive Second Team honors.<\/p>\n

Indiana rewarded her with a four-year, $6.3 million extension, the richest total salary in WNBA history.<\/p>\n

With fellow All-Star Caitlin Clark<\/a> back at full health, the Fever enter 2026 as legitimate title contenders.<\/p>\n

Boston has already accomplished quite a lot in her young career and recently added another major feather in her cap.<\/p>\n

\"Indiana<\/p>\n

Indiana Fever forward Aliyah Boston.Christine Tannous&sol;IndyStar-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Boston took her game to another level during the 2026 Unrivaled season with Phantom BC. She averaged 18.9 points, 9.7 rebounds and a league-leading 2.1 blocks per game across 14 games.<\/p>\n

Her dominance helped Phantom claim the No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs. Unfortunately, a right lower extremity injury cut her postseason run short.<\/p>\n

Still, her inspired play earned her the Unrivaled Defensive Player of the Year<\/a> title. Boston also clinched a spot on the All-Unrivaled Second Team.<\/p>\n

She is now fully healthy and participating in the Fever training camp. Boston appeared on media day and reflected on her career milestone away from the WNBA.<\/p>\n

“It was super fun for me. Winning DPOY was pretty good, too,” she said. “I think it’s gonna help motivate me this year to continue to be that defensive presence, at the rim, at the perimeter, anywhere the team needs.”<\/p>\n

Boston enters 2026 more motivated than ever to prove she is one of the best players in the league. With title ambitions in tow, the Fever will lean on Boston as their defensive anchor once again.<\/p>\n

Related: Fever GM Refuses to Address Sophie Cunningham Decision<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Apr 23, 2026, where it first appeared in the WNBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever star Aliyah Boston carries plenty of momentum heading into the 2026 WNBA season. The 24-year-old forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[2648,262051,262052,1760,2839,99,434,66313],"class_list":{"0":"post-602360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-aliyah-boston","9":"tag-all-defensive-second-team","10":"tag-all-wnba-second-team","11":"tag-caitlin-clark","12":"tag-indiana-fever","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-wnba","15":"tag-wnba-history"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}