A’ja Wilson, Aces reach championship summit

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Monday, Sept. 19, 2022 | 2 a.m.

A’ja Wilson has come a long way in her five years in the WNBA, and she has brought the Las Vegas Aces with her.

On Sunday, Wilson reached the top of the mountain, as she helped deliver the franchise’s first championship with a 78-71 win over Connecticut in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals.

Wilson didn’t turn in her most sparkling offensive performance, as she shot 4-of-13 and tallied 11 points, but there’s no doubt that everything about the Aces’ first title stems from the day the team selected the forward from South Carolina with the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft.

Now, with a title in tow, this is not only Wilson’s team, but her league.

“Winning a championship is something that no one can ever take from you,” Wilson said while cradling a bottle of champagne in her postgame press conference. “Once you got that down, you are in the books forever.”

That’s something she knows from experience. After Wilson’s run to the 2017 NCAA championship, South Carolina memorialized the achievement by building a statue of her on campus. But professional success didn’t come immediately for Wilson.

As a rookie in 2018, she joined a team at the bottom of the league that had just packed up and left San Antonio for a new home in Las Vegas. Her first game, also coincidentally at Mohegan Sun Arena against Connecticut, ended in a 101-65 loss; Wilson posted 14 points and 10 rebounds.

The Aces did not make the playoffs that season, but Wilson’s steady improvement and growth as a player over the past half-decade has positioned Las Vegas as the league’s premier team.

Wilson won her first league MVP award in 2020, then backed it up with another MVP trophy in 2022. She also claimed her first Defensive Player of the Year award this season, proving that she is a force-multiplier on both ends of the floor.

Point guard Chelsea Gray marveled at the impact Wilson made throughout the season as she developed into a defensive stopper.

“I think she’s building one heck of a legacy at a young age,” Gray said. “She has two MVPs, a Defensive Player of the Year — she’s doing both sides of the ball. Like, that is difficult.”

But without a championship, personal achievements can ring a bit hollow. And Wilson had trouble taking the final step — the Aces reached the semifinals in each of the last four years, including a Finals run in 2020, only to come up short each time.

That discussion is finished now, as Wilson came through in a big way throughout the 2022 postseason. She led Las Vegas with 21.3 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game and consistently came up clutch in close contests.

And her evolution as a player was on full display in the Game 4 clincher, as she focused her efforts at the defensive end and pulled down 14 rebounds to help the Aces win a knock-down slugfest to bring home the trophy.

Wilson seemed especially proud of the way she and her teammates had to dig deep and scrap their way through the playoffs.

“When you can prove people wrong and you can hoist that trophy up, it’s truly special,” she said. “We got out of the mud. No series was easy for us, so it’s super special.”

At just 26 years old, with a multiple MVPs and a championship under her belt, Wilson is already inserting herself into the tapestry of the league.

Gray said it’s time to “have that conversation” about Wilson’s place in WNBA history.

“We understand who she is, who she’s been for this franchise, for this city, what she’s doing for South Carolina,” Gray said. “It’s a lot of weight on her shoulders, and she’s been able to carry that with grace.”

Wilson is still the happy-go-lucky kid she was when she came to Las Vegas in 2018. That was evidenced in her post-championship interview, when she compared the feeling of winning to a banana split sundae.

She’s also comfortable shouldering the responsibility of being a franchise player.

“When I look back five years, I’m so grateful about who I am and who I’ve become,” Wilson said. “I’m more at peace with myself. I know who I am more than ever.”

And who is she? On Sunday, that question had the most satisfying answer of all.

A champion.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.