NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2017 – WNBA Rookie of the Year Allisha Gray of the Dallas
Wings leads the 2017 WNBA All-Rookie Team as one of three unanimous selections,
the WNBA announced today.
The All-Rookie Team also features San Antonio Stars guard Kelsey Plum, Atlanta
Dream guard Brittney Sykes, Wings guard Kaela Davis and Washington Mystics guard
Shatori Walker-Kimbrough.
Gray, Plum and Sykes received the maximum 11 votes from a panel of the WNBA’s 12
head coaches, who each selected five players regardless of position and were not
permitted to vote for players on their own team. Davis and Walker-Kimbrough
earned seven votes each.
The fourth overall pick in the WNBA Draft 2017 presented by State Farm, Gray
finished second among rookies in scoring (13.0 ppg) and rebounding (3.9 rpg).
She also led first-year players in steals with 1.53 per game, which ranked
seventh in the WNBA. Gray began her career by earning WNBA Rookie of the Month
honors in May and June.
Plum, the top pick in this year’s draft, led rookies in assists (3.4 apg) and
free throw percentage (87.0) to go with the third-highest scoring average (8.5
ppg) and the fourth-best three-point field goal percentage (36.5). On
back-to-back days, Plum handed out a career-high 12 assists against Washington
on Aug. 4 and scored a career-high 23 points against the Seattle Storm on Aug.
5.
Sykes was the rookie leader in scoring (13.9 ppg), rebounding (4.1 rpg) and
three-pointers made (37). The seventh selection in the April draft was named
Rookie of the Month for July and August/September, a stretch that included 21
double-figure scoring performances in 22 games. Sykes closed the season with a
career-best 33 points against the Phoenix Mercury on Sept. 3 – the
highest-scoring game by a rookie in 2017.
Davis led rookies in three-point field goal percentage (42.9) and ranked fourth
in scoring (6.1 ppg) after being selected by Dallas with the 10th pick in the
2017 draft. She scored 20 points against the Phoenix in her WNBA debut on May 14
and posted a career-high 23 points against the Chicago Sky on July 16. Davis
joined Gray, her college teammate at South Carolina, in helping the Wings earn
the seventh seed in the WNBA Playoffs 2017 presented by Verizon.
Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, drafted with the sixth pick in 2017, helped the
Mystics reach the playoffs as the sixth seed. She scored at least 13 points in
three straight games from Aug. 12-18 – three of her eight starts in 2017. For
the season, Walker-Kimbrough averaged 4.4 points in 12.5 minutes and ranked
third among rookies in free-throw percentage (85.4).
Below are the top finishers in the voting for the 2017 WNBA All-Rookie Team:
2017 WNBA ALL-ROOKIE TEAM Allisha Gray (Dallas Wings) Kelsey Plum (San Antonio
Stars) Brittney Sykes (Atlanta Dream) Kaela Davis (Dallas Wings) Shatori
Walker-Kimbrough (Washington Mystics)
