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  "path": "/wnba/2026/07/02/confessions-of-a-wnba-all-star-voter",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-03T00:37:46.118Z",
  "site": "https://chicago.suntimes.com",
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  "textContent": "<p>You know what time it is, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/wnba\" >WNBA</a> fans.</p><p>The All-Star starters were announced Thursday, revealing where fans, players and media ranked the league’s top stars at the midpoint of the season.</p><p>Which means everyone gets to indulge their sports fan reflexes.</p><p>Decry injustice. Settle old scores. Expose fools. Invalidate other people’s perspectives.</p><p>Or maybe, instead of signing up for another round of social media jousting, you’d rather stretch your introspective muscles.</p><div class=\"Enhancement\" data-align-center><div class=\"Enhancement-item\"> <div class=\"ExternalContent-wrapper\" > <div class=\"TweetUrl\"> <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">2026 WNBA All-Star starters are SET 🤩<br><br>See you in the Windy City 🏀🌟 <a href=\"https://t.co/Zz8waLbfUQ\">pic.twitter.com/Zz8waLbfUQ</a></p>— ESPN (@espn) <a href=\"https://x.com/espn/status/2072730537345614012?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 2, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src=\"https://platform.x.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script> </div> </div> </div></div><p>All-Star debates can be a great opportunity to reflect on ourselves.</p><p>This was my second year as an All-Star voter. I’m still new enough to the process that it can feel imposing, but far enough in to want the ballot to feel authentic. Like a true Alissa Hirsh of the Chicago Sun-Times ballot, not just a random media member trying to fit in.</p><p>So I decided to lean into my biases.</p><p>These were the ones I used:</p><h3></h3><p><b>Hirsh Bias No. 1:</b> The best players from the top six teams were favored. Players from the bottom nine had to clear an extremely high bar. Basketball is a team sport, so let's reward team success.</p><h3></h3><p><b>Hirsh Bias No. 2:</b> Efficient scorers were favored. High-volume scorers with low or mediocre shooting percentages were treated with more suspicion. All the best scorers in the W can put points on the board. I wanted to reward the elite group that does it efficiently.</p><h3></h3><p><b>Hirsh Bias No. 3:</b> Try to represent as many teams as possible, within reason. </p><p>Now, for the reveal of where my ballot differed from the actual starters.</p><p>The All-Star guards are Paige Bueckers, Olivia Miles, Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell.</p><p>I had Bueckers, Miles, Kelsey Plum and Rhyne Howard.</p><p>The All-Star frontcourt starters are A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Jessica Shepard, Gabby Williams, Natasha Howard and Aliyah Boston.</p><p>I had Angel Reese instead of Boston. The rest were the same.</p><p>Overall, I think my framework served me well, despite its internal tensions. It kept the process manageable and fun. And I didn’t stray too far from how the media, fans and players saw things.</p><p>But it wasn't perfect. Like all biases, I think they narrowed my focus at the expense of larger truths.</p><p>Leaving off Clark and Boston, in particular, showed that my bias toward the top teams was too strong. Mediocre record or not, I should have found space for at least one of them — Clark for her court vision, Boston for her all-around impact — though I’m still not completely sure where.</p><p>I also realized later that I had been using another bias without fully recognizing it: I was judging players against their own potential, not just against their peers.</p><p>Plum stuck out to me in part because she is putting together layers of her game that have developed over years. She looks like a player at or near the peak of her powers.</p><p>That is worth celebrating. I don’t regret the pick.</p><p>But I also don’t want to leave off deserving players who are having great seasons simply because I think they can play better.</p><p>So what did I learn from all of this?</p><p>On the surface, being more aware of my biases should make me a better voter next year.</p><p>On a deeper level, the process also helped me see different parts of myself more clearly.</p><p>I can see myself wanting to trust my intuition more, but still building analytical structures to fall back on.</p><p>I can see the former point guard in me, valuing winning and efficiency. I can see the developing journalist who wants the ballot to be representative and generous.</p><p>I can also see that in holding great players to the standard of not just playing well, but playing up to their fullest potential, I was doing something I wrote about recently: <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/wnba/2026/06/11/caitlin-clark-holds-two-truths-about-her-competitive-fire-can-we\" >applying pressure</a>.</p><p>There it was again, the tendency to bring pressure in place of sentiments that don’t come as naturally, but are actually what I’m looking for:</p><p>Recognition. Appreciation. Even love.</p><p>At its best, those are the things sports give us the opportunity to practice.</p><p>We should take that opportunity more often.</p><p></p><bsp-list-loadmore class=\"PageListH\" data-module data-hide-authors=\"true\" data-hide-categories=\"true\" data-hide-dates=\"true\" data-show-loadmore=\"true\" ><a class=\"AnchorLink\" id=\"list-010001\" name=\"list-010001\"></a><div class=\"PageList-header\" > <div class=\"PageList-header-title-wrap\" > <div class=\"PageList-header-title\"> Latest on the Sky and WNBA </div> </div> </div> <div class=\"PageListH-items\" data-with-borders data-list-loadmore-items> <div class=\"PageListH-items-item\"><div class=\"PagePromoB\"> <div class=\"PagePromo-media\"><a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"The 20 things in sports I only wish I could declare independence from this year\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/2026/07/02/caitlin-clark-haters-apologists-caleb-williams-world-cup-independence-day-aaron-rodgers\" ><picture data-crop=\"medium-4x3\"> <source type=\"image/webp\" width=\"490\" height=\"328\" data-srcset=\"https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/001c74d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3485x2333+7+0/resize/490x328!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fe6%2Fd8%2Fe5ebccda4dd19669a70a09d4b5c7%2F2282338647.jpg\" data-lazy-load=\"true\" srcset=\"data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMjhweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4=\" /> <source width=\"490\" height=\"328\" data-srcset=\"https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5660e2e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3485x2333+7+0/resize/490x328!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fe6%2Fd8%2Fe5ebccda4dd19669a70a09d4b5c7%2F2282338647.jpg\" data-lazy-load=\"true\" 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potential blind spots. That should not be remarkable, but it was worth hearing in this moment.</div> <div class=\"PagePromo-byline\"><div class=\"PagePromo-date\"> <bsp-timestamp data-timestamp=1782946359000 data-promo=\"true\"> <template data-date-tpl>[month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]</template> <span data-date> </span> </bsp-timestamp><span class=\"dot\"></span></div> <div class=\"PagePromo-author\"> <span>By </span><strong><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/alissa-hirsh\" >Alissa Hirsh </a></strong> </div> <div class=\"PagePromo-readingTime\"> <span class=\"dot-divider\"></span> <svg class=\"PagePromo-readingTime-icon\"> <use xlink:href=\"#icon-clock-reading\"></use> </svg> <span class=\"PagePromo-readingTime-text\"> <bsp-time-to-read data-article-word-count=\"643\"></bsp-time-to-read> read </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class=\"PageListH-items-item\"><div class=\"PagePromoB\"> <div class=\"PagePromo-media\"><a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"As All-Star Weekend approaches, the Sky’s practice facility still isn’t ready\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-sky/2026/06/30/as-all-star-weekend-approaches-the-skys-practice-facility-still-isnt-ready\" ><picture data-crop=\"medium-4x3\"> <source type=\"image/webp\" width=\"490\" height=\"328\" data-srcset=\"https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/56c3cb3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x2699+0+222/resize/490x328!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fdd%2F32%2F5d82e33244d68606b5a040a3dc33%2Fimg-3155.jpeg\" data-lazy-load=\"true\" srcset=\"data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMjhweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4=\" /> <source width=\"490\" height=\"328\" data-srcset=\"https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f165482/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x2699+0+222/resize/490x328!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fdd%2F32%2F5d82e33244d68606b5a040a3dc33%2Fimg-3155.jpeg\" data-lazy-load=\"true\" srcset=\"data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMjhweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4=\" /> <img class=\"Image\" alt=\"IMG_3155.jpeg\" width=\"490\" height=\"328\" data-src=\"https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f165482/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x2699+0+222/resize/490x328!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fdd%2F32%2F5d82e33244d68606b5a040a3dc33%2Fimg-3155.jpeg\" data-lazy-load=\"true\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMjhweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4=\" > </picture> </a></div> <div class=\"PagePromoB-content\"> <div class=\"PagePromo-category\"> <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-sky\" >Sky</a> </div> <div class=\"PagePromo-title\"> <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-sky/2026/06/30/as-all-star-weekend-approaches-the-skys-practice-facility-still-isnt-ready\" >As All-Star Weekend approaches, the Sky’s practice facility still isn’t ready</a> </div> <div class=\"PagePromo-description\">The Sky last said the facility would be done by “late spring.” But recent visits to the site show construction is still active, with key pieces of the project unfinished.</div> <div class=\"PagePromo-byline\"><div class=\"PagePromo-date\"> <bsp-timestamp data-timestamp=1782852396000 data-promo=\"true\"> <template data-date-tpl>[month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]</template> <span data-date> </span> </bsp-timestamp><span class=\"dot\"></span></div> <div class=\"PagePromo-author\"> <span>By </span><strong><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/alissa-hirsh\" >Alissa Hirsh </a></strong> </div> <div class=\"PagePromo-readingTime\"> <span class=\"dot-divider\"></span> <svg class=\"PagePromo-readingTime-icon\"> <use xlink:href=\"#icon-clock-reading\"></use> </svg> <span class=\"PagePromo-readingTime-text\"> <bsp-time-to-read data-article-word-count=\"649\"></bsp-time-to-read> read </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class=\"PageList-footer\"> </div> </bsp-list-loadmore><p></p>",
  "title": "Confessions of a WNBA All-Star voter",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-03T01:15:57.577Z"
}