Indiana Fever guard Shavonte Zellous wins the 2013 WNBA Most Improved Player award

There were a number of solid candidates for the 2013 WNBA Most Improved Player award, but you wouldn't know it from how the voting went.

Indiana Fever guard Shavonte Zellous got 30 of 39 votes from a media panel to win the award after improving her scoring numbers to help her team withstand season-long injury struggles to make the 2013 playoffs; no other player got more than one vote, according to the WNBA release:

There was a nine-way tie for second place, with each of the following players receiving one vote: Jayne Appel (San Antonio Silver Stars); Elizabeth Cambage (Tulsa Shock); Erika de Souza (Atlanta Dream); Kelsey Griffin (Connecticut Sun); Allison Hightower (Connecticut Sun); Glory Johnson (Tulsa Shock); Danielle Robinson (San Antonio Silver Stars); Courtney Vandersloot (Chicago Sky); and Monica Wright (Minnesota Lynx).

A number of those other players had a strong case for being considered the most improved player, but the combination of Zellous' improvement and increased responsibility for the success of her team gave her the best narrative of any of the top candidates.

For more on Zellous and the other deserving candidates in 2013, check out our Most Improved Player watch storystream. For a list of past winners and their statistics, check out Basketball-Reference.com.