Last year felt like a coronation of sorts for A’ja Wilson. She picked up a Finals MVP to go with her two regular season MVPs, won another championship and earned another honor as Defensive Player of the Year. Wilson set career highs in points, rebounds and blocks. It was her sixth season in the WNBA and, it seemed, the first glimpse of what might be her peak.
It now feels more like a warmup. Wilson has taken her career performance from last season and managed to upgrade it across the board. She has not simply improved her game this year so much as she has completely expanded it.
With the WNBA returning this week from its Olympic break, Wilson sits poised to finish out a remarkable, potentially historic, season. The 28-year-old Las Vegas Aces forward is on track to pass every one of those career marks that she posted last season. She’s comfortably averaging a double-double, leading the league in points (27.2 PPG) and rebounds (tied with the Chicago Sky's Angel Reese at 12.0 RPG), as well as blocks (2.9 BPG). Wilson returns to play this weekend with a second gold medal to her name and a challenge to finish out.
Could this be the best individual season ever recorded in the WNBA?
“Even with all the pressure that she has, she just keeps showing up,” says Aces guard and Olympic teammate Jackie Young. “She continues to get better every year, and it’s so hard to get better at this level, but she does. It just shows the type of person that she is.”
No one has done as much as Wilson is doing as efficiently as she has. Her 35.6 PER would be the highest in the history of the league. She is currently on pace to break the WNBA records for both points and rebounds per game: Those marks were set by Diana Taurasi in 2006 and Sylvia Fowles in ’18, respectively, a pair who represent very different sets of talents. Yet, here, in Wilson, is a player establishing herself as both a more prolific scorer than prime Taurasi and a more effective board-crasher than prime Fowles. That combination may have sounded impossible not so long ago. But the game has changed, and a savvy, versatile Wilson has changed with it.
The former No. 1 pick has gradually expanded her skill set over her years in the league. At 6' 4", Wilson historically played like a traditional post, if an exceptionally mobile one. But under Aces coach Becky Hammon, she began to stretch over the last few seasons, introducing the occasional shot from three and doing more to space the floor. That set the stage for what has felt like a revelation this year. Wilson is still as dominant as ever in the paint. Yet she’s also gotten much closer to a model of modern, positionless basketball, playing more on the perimeter and becoming more likely to create her own shot.
“A is so dynamic that she definitely can get the rebound and then push it in transition,” Aces guard Kelsey Plum says. “She’s like a big guard.”
That approach means Wilson has a very different shot chart from last year. She’s more than doubled her shot attempts from three. That number is still modest—1.6 shots per game—but it represents a meaningful change for a player who took essentially no threes at all for the first four seasons of her career. Her two-point selection has changed significantly. Wilson hasn’t changed the number of shots she takes at or near the basket—which still makes up most of her attempts—but she has started taking more from almost every point further out. She’s shooting more in general this season, yes, but she’s especially shooting more from midrange:
She’s developed as a passer, too, cutting down on turnovers while boosting her assists. Wilson has grown notably more comfortable finding her teammates when defenses are collapsing in on her. “When people try to bring doubles and triples, she’s finding us,” Plum says. “A’ja’s done more than her job.” She has, essentially, taken on a slew of new jobs. While she can still be a nightmare to face in the post, she’s now a far more dynamic, well-rounded player all over the floor.
Teammates say her growth as a leader and facilitator has matched her growth in other areas. Wilson has been more vocal on the floor this year, especially on defense, says Aces center Kiah Stokes. In the early weeks of the season, when the Aces were missing injured point guard Chelsea Gray, there was little debate about who might step in to fill the leadership void. It was Wilson who logged extra minutes, played a more flexible role and rallied the group.
“She’s not a young player anymore,” Stokes says. “She’s turned into a vet.”
All the ingredients are in place for a historic season. But teammates insist some people are missing the big picture. Asked if there’s anything left out in discussions of Wilson’s game, Plum doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah,” she says. “There is.”
“It’s that she’s the best player in the world, and it’s not close.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as This Is the Best Version of A’ja Wilson Yet.
