On Oct. 10, the WNBA season ended as the Las Vegas Aces took home their third WNBA championship in franchise history. The Aces swept the Phoenix Mercury in four games.
The Aces’ A’ja Wilson averaged 28 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, two blocks and a steal on her way to earning her second Finals Most Valuable Player. She dropped 31 points and nine rebounds in Game 4 on Friday, scored a game-winning jumper in Game 3 and became the first player in WNBA Finals history to put up three consecutive games with 25 or more points and 10 rebounds.
This is just another record to add to Wilson’s mass of accomplishments.
Four regular-season MVPs, three WNBA championships, two Finals MVPs and two Defensive Player of the Year awards. Not to mention, only five players have won MVP and DPOY in the same season.
Wilson did it twice and is the only player to do it in the last 18 years. In 2024, she became the first and only WNBA player to score over 1,000 in a single season. That same year, Wilson set the record for the highest single-season points per game average with 26.9, surpassing the previous record of 25.3.
The scary thing about all these accolades is that Wilson is only 29 years old. She easily has at least five seasons of MVP-level play left in her. Women’s basketball is as popular as it has ever been, and the talent pool in the WNBA is deeper than ever.
However, Wilson is so clearly the best player in the WNBA that any argument against her is pointless. She is the league’s best scorer and rim protector, and she has been for years.
It seems like the only way to stop her dominance is to hope she fouls out. The problem with that strategy is that Wilson has played 267 regular-season games and only fouled out once. In 55 postseason games, she has never even picked up a fifth foul.
In 2022, after Wilson won her first WNBA championship, her teammate Chelsea Gray said Wilson should “absolutely” be in the Greatest of All Time conversation: “It should already be starting to be talked about,” Gray said.
At that point in time, Wilson’s trophy case consisted of a Rookie of the Year Award, two MVPs and a DPOY. Since then, Wilson added two more MVPs, two WNBA championships, two Finals MVPs and another DPOY award in just three years. Now it feels taboo to name a player the GOAT while they’re still actively playing.
But when you put Wilson’s career achievements up against some of the greats, the difference is glaring. We have never seen a player as dominant as Wilson, and if she’s still playing, we won’t see another.
