A’ja Wilson is so much more more than just the WNBA MVP

UNCASVILLE, CONNECTICUT — It’s a Friday morning at the Mohegan Sun Arena, and A’ja Wilson and the rest of the Las Vegas Aces have just completed shootaround. They are a few hours away from a match-up against one of the WNBA’s premier teams — the Connecticut Sun — a game they would go on to win.

It hasn’t been a perfect season for the two-time defending champions; they hovered around .500 in the first few weeks, their defense looking disjointed, and their offense anemic at times.

But, on this particular day, you’d never guess there was much adversity at all. There’s nothing but smiles and laughter in the gym, some playful teasing, music blasting. Rookie Kate Martin, the youngest member of the squad, is getting up some corner three-pointers alongside 37-year-old Alysha Clark, the roster’s most veteran contributor.

Jackie Young, Kelsey Plum, and Chelsea Gray — the three All-Star guards who are fresh off of an Olympic run — shoot tirelessly on the other end of the court. Though the shootaround ended nearly 30 minutes ago, it doesn’t appear that anyone is in a rush to head out.

In the midst of all the action is A’ja Wilson.

At 6’4, she’s one of the tallest people in the gym, but she doesn’t really stand out among the post players getting up shots, a group that includes Kierstan Bell and Kiah Stokes. A’ja cracks a few jokes, and pokes fun at herself after dramatically missing a top-of-the-key three pointer. A few of her teammates join in on the fun.

Then, she walks over to the sidelines for an interview.

One-on-one with A’ja Wilson

I had requested to speak with Wilson regarding her 2024 MVP candidacy — a topic that’s dominated the national discourse around her season, and one that she’s likely taken many interviews about in recent weeks. Wilson was vulnerable last year about how much it hurt to miss out on the honor — the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart was awarded MVP instead.

“It hurt like hell, it really did,” Wilson said at the time.

Somehow, she came back from last season a much-improved player, her counting stats up in nearly every category. This year, she is is averaging 27 points, 12 rebounds, 2.6 blocks and 1.8 steals per game — all of those numbers are career highs.

This year, the debate is not about whether Wilson will win the MVP award. It’s simply about whether she’ll do so unanimously, about whether a single media member of the 68 with an awards vote could possibly believe that there’s a case to be made that any other WNBA player is this year’s Most Valuable Player.

“If she’s not the unanimous MVP, I have conspiracy theories,” Kelsey Plum told me. I laughed. She smiled too, but then quickly made clear that she wasn’t kidding. There were other players having great years — but no one was doing what Wilson was doing.

“I mean, I really will [have conspiracy theories], you know?” Plum said. “I don’t even know who else you put in the conversation, to be honest.”

As soon as Wilson takes a seat next to me, her teammates come over and pretend to take photos of her getting interviewed. Sydney Colson, who can often be found joking around with Wilson online, led the charge on that one. Young also walks by with a playful grin.

“Sorry about my teammates,” Wilson says, shooing them away.

Photo by David Becker/NBAE via Getty Images

In my young career covering professional basketball, I’ve interviewed plenty of NBA and WNBA players, and normally, they’re pretty brief in their answers, especially on game day —and especially if it’s a first-time interaction. Even the friendly ones, of which there are many, hold their cards near their chest, in an understandable effort to avoid saying something that will accidentally dominate the day’s news.

I’d never spoken with Wilson before this day, but from the jump, I could tell that the conversation is going to be unique.

“How’s it going today?” she asks, a smile plastered across her face, as she sits back in her chair along the court’s sideline.

I have a list of questions in hand that I want to get A’ja’s perspective on — how much she’s been paying attention to the discourse around her season, what she attributes to her recent success, how she perceives leadership.

And, I can quickly tell that this isn’t going to be one of those conversations that is cut off after five minutes. A’ja Wilson — somehow — has time.

From the jump, she makes clear that this year, she’s making a special effort to shut out the narratives. She admits she scrolls through Twitter like anyone else, but recognizes that there’s no reason to closely follow the discourse around whether or not she’ll be named MVP, and whether or not it will be a unanimous vote.

“That’s out of my control,” Wilson said. “If I can control it, I’m all in. But if I can’t, I can’t really give it a lot of energy, because then I just get in my head, and it’s a downward spiral. Am I doing enough? Is it gonna be this year? Is it gonna be next year, what it’s gonna be?”

Wilson is on her way to having the highest single-season Player Efficiency Rating (35.23) of any player in basketball history – male or female. It’s a rating that sums up all of a player’s positive statistics, subtracts the negative ones, and returns a per-minute rating of their performance.

Better than Nikola Jokic.

Better than LeBron James.

Better than Lauren Jackson, Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne and the countless WNBA legends who came before her.

Yet, somehow, she didn’t even know she was on pace to set that record until I told her.

“I heard something about 1000 points?” (Wilson went on to become the first player in WNBA history to score 1000 points in a single season 10 days after our conversation).

But, she nothing about the Playing Efficiency Rating record.

“I honestly didn’t know that. I definitely didn’t know it was both [NBA and WNBA],” Wilson said with a smile, and then paused before continuing, absorbing the information.

“That’s actually pretty cool.”

The Aces have won the last seven games that Wilson has played (she sat out a loss to the Liberty with an ankle sprain last weekend). In the past month, she’s had multiple 40-plus point outings, including 42 points against the Dallas Wings, and 41 against the Phoenix Mercury.

But on those nights, and the many other high-scoring affairs she’s had, it’s important to A’ja that her scoring is benefitting everyone else, that her teammates stay in rhythm.

“I honestly just kind of take what the defense gives me, and in some moments throughout the game, I’m like, ‘ooh, A’ja, wait, you’re kind of getting shots up,’” she says. “And then some moments, the game just slows down for me, and it looks just doable. It looks like I’m not forcing it. It looks in the flow of our game. And that’s my thing. I want it to be emphasized on just being in the flow of our system. I don’t want it to look like, ‘Damn, A’ja is just out there shooting shots.’”

It’s not the first time I’ve asked a superstar about what it feels like to be in the groove. But it is the first time I’ve heard them immediately jump to share how important it is that their scoring isn’t disruptive, that they’re not shooting too much.

After all, Wilson is shooting 51.9% from the field, and 84.5% from the free throw line. It would probably be okay if she took a few more shots per game.

“I want it to be in the flow, [that] I’m not shooting over three people, you know?” Wilson said.

Wilson won Finals MVP last year, averaging 23 points against the Liberty to win the crown. She was masterful again in the Olympics, leading Team USA to an Olympic gold medal, and handily earning MVP of the tournament. It’s a level of continuous success that can be hard to process, and her teammates have routinely stated that the crown she wears is heavy.

“I try to give everything its own space and moment, so I can savor that moment,” Wilson said. “So, I probably won’t really get it until the end of the regular season, when I have a period, just a day, to really decompress what I just did.”

“Then, we head into the playoffs.”

The regular season wraps up on Thursday, and the playoffs begin on Sunday. The Aces currently sit in 4th place, set to host the Seattle Storm in a best-of-three first round series. If they win that one, they’ll advance to the semi-finals — a best-of-five series, most likely to tip off against the New York Liberty.

Though this year, they have an inferior record, an Aces-Liberty series would ultimately be a 2023 Finals rematch. The Aces have to feel at least somewhat confident going in.

Wilson has made the leap from the best… to even better

When A’ja Wilson came into the league as the Las Vegas Aces’ No. 1 draft pick, she was immediately one of the league’s top players, averaging 20.7 points and 8 rebounds on 46.2% shooting in her rookie season. She’s continuously gotten better each year, and in her career, she’s already accrued two Defensive Player of the Year awards and two Most Valuable Player awards.

Last year, when she came in third place in MVP voting, she had just completed the most efficient season of her career, shooting 55.7% from the field and leading the Aces to more wins than any team in WNBA history (34). Then, she dominated in the Finals as the Aces overtook the Liberty in four games.

“It doesn’t matter how many MVPs, it doesn’t matter how many championships: my thing is to get better every single year,” Wilson said. “I want someone to say, ‘Damn, she worked on that. Oh, damn, she got good at that.’ That’s the biggest thing. That’s why it doesn’t come as a surprise to me.”

Tiffany Hayes, an 11-year WNBA veteran who came out of retirement to join the Aces this Spring, could hardly find the words to capture Wilson’s achievements.

Hayes is one of many Aces players who have relished the opportunity to answer a question about Wilson, something even the more quiet players (read: Jackie Young) have been willing to chime in about.

“A’ja is having one of the best years I’ve ever seen anybody have, that I’ve played with, and maybe even ever,” Hayes said. “She’s doing things I’ve never seen before, and I don’t think I’ve ever said that — and I get to literally be right there while she’s doing it.

“Just how she carries that crown — the crown is heavy, and the way she handles it is just very inspiring. It makes you feel like you can do whatever, be whatever. You go into a locker room with somebody that’s doing it every day, it’s really special.”

Kelsey Plum has been teammates with Wilson for six years now, so by now, she’s seen it all: the defensive masterpieces, the game-changing plays, the game-winners. It never gets old.

“The thing is, she’s seeing two, three people, four people on her every night,” Plum said. “And it just doesn’t matter. She’s able to shoot over people. She’s able to take over games. And then her rebounding has just been unbelievable.”

Plum isn’t wrong; Wilson just broke the single-season rebounding record this week, too. Her 12 rebound per game average is the best of her career.

Above all, A’ja Wilson is the Aces’ heart and soul

Wilson makes it clear every time she addresses the media: her biggest point of pride is not the scoring, not the rebounding, not even the defense. It’s the off-court impact she’s able to have on her teammates, and she makes that known every time she speaks. They return the favor.

“When I got drafted to this franchise, they were claiming I’m the leader,” Wilson told me. “I wanted this to be something that is, like, ‘if you know, you know.’ On the outskirts, they can say whatever they want to say about us. They can say, ‘Oh my God, they’re arrogant and they’re this’ – cool, whatever. But once you get into this locker room and understand how we are, and who we are, and how special the sisterhood we have here, that’s what matters to me.”

It seems to be working. Tiffany Hayes has played for several WNBA teams, but she’s never experienced an environment like this before.

“People are different here — like you’re just able to just be yourself, and do what you do, and it just comes easy,” Hayes said.

Knowing that she has helped create that culture in Las Vegas means more to Wilson than any accolade.

“It’s a huge deal,” she said. “I love when people say that. Even with AC [Alysha Clark], I would ask AC, ‘how’s our locker room different?’ Because I want to know, how can we get better for each other? The biggest thing is always talking about the camaraderie and the sisterhood that we’ve built here.”

“I love things that my teammates do on the court, but off the court, the heart and the soul that they have, and their other endeavors — that’s what’s true to me. We have tons of fun, and that just means that a lot of people come here, and they’re happy.”

Less than two weeks later, when Wilson became the first WNBA player to pass the 1,000 points in a season mark, her teammates tackled her at mid-court in celebration. The Aces stopped the game to recognize that history was just made at the Michelob ULTRA Center. Fans donning white T-shirts — Wilson’s signature look — and holding 1’000 signs rose to their feet.

Records are broken all the time, and especially in this year’s WNBA, but this scene was uniquely joyful.

Afterwards, in a locker room speech that captured Wilson’s very essence as the authentic superstar who is willing to be vulnerable, she credited her teammates, first and foremost.

“I hope y’all know how much I love y’all,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Each and every last one of y’all. Y’all will never understand how much y’all mean to me, because there’s days where I hate being A’ja Wilson. I hate it. But when I come into work, and I see y’all smiling, and I see y’all just happy, it makes me who I am. I am so grateful to have teammates like y’all.”

The feeling is clearly mutual.