The Race Is On: A'ja Wilson vs. Everyone Else

With her fourth WNBA MVP award locked up, the Las Vegas Aces superstar has asserted herself as not just the league's undisputed best player of this era, but more than likely the greatest ever.

A’ja Wilson isn’t chasing anyone anymore.

On a Sunday morning in September, the 29 year old WNBA superstar was announced as the league’s 2025 MVP, her fourth time earning the honor in her career. It puts her in rarified air, not just in the women’s game but in basketball in general. Not only is she the first player in WNBA history to earn four Most Valuable Player honors but she also joins Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lebron James as the only American basketball players to win 4 MVP’s before the age of 30.

Those three men, mind you, all have cases of their own to be the greatest of all time in their own league.

If A’ja Wilson were to stop playing basketball *today*, she’d finish as the undisputed best player of this era and the frontrunner to be the best to every do it in the WNBA. Instead, Wilson (lord willing) has another decade to continue to add to her CVS-length receipt of achievements. By the time the dust is expected to settle, the path to being the undisputed greatest player ever is right in front of her.

So what does this all mean? Does a fourth MVP effectively end the GOAT conversation?

In short, for now.

There will always be another challenger. There’s already some that exist in the league and a pipeline of potential superstars on the way. But Wilson is untouchable at this very moment, no matter who tries to come for the crown. Even the media — long derided by Wilson’s fans and even her former South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley — as being unabashed skeptics of her game have come around. Her 51 votes to Napheesa Collier’s 18 prove that the benefit of the doubt now goes to the Aces superstar instead of to someone else. Part of that feels, on some level, powered by the fact that Wilson has rings to prove her greatness where Collier and Alyssa Thomas are still in pursuit of their first.

While some voters came out and openly discussed the need to constantly build off each season statistically, most seemed to have understood just how much of an outlier Wilson’s historic 2024 season was and rewarded her for basically maintaining a nearly-impossible standard. When it comes to assessing value, there’s no one that impacts her team on both ends of the floor and comes away with more positive results than her. Over the course of their 16 game winning streak, Wilson averaged 26.1 points and 12 rebounds along with 1.6 steals and 2.3 blocks per game.

It’s the second consecutive season Wilson has averaged over 20 points and 10 rebounds for the whole season, a feat never accomplished in the WNBA before. That’s all while increasing her assist averages, and falling just a few free throws short of her own 50-40-90 season.

There’s something to be said for the patience of Wilson’s vision. The common refrain we hear associated with her is “what is delayed, is not denied”. In spite of being overshadowed earlier in her career by Breanna Stewart, or being blocked at the rim by Brittney Griner with playoff elimination on the line, or trying to lead a team that wasn’t reaching its’ ceiling under Bill Laimbeer, Wilson has shined through it all.

She held the Aces to titles in 2022 and 2023 with categorically dominant scoring averages and, if not for Alyssa Thomas splitting off votes, probably would be sitting on her fifth MVP at this very moment. While many look at the infamous fourth place vote in 2023 as the defining barrier to that award, that vote alone didn’t cost her a chance to unseat Stewart. Two years later, we saw a similar situation play out but this time Wilson had the rings, pedigree and respect to prove that she was the MVP beyond the shadow of a doubt.

The fact that she took home 51 first place votes to Collier’s 18 shows how much Wilson has changed other’s perceptions of her in just two short seasons. Now, she’s the person everyone has to be measured against. In order to unseat her, *you* have to be more than exceptional. That’s the standard.

A’ja Wilson is the standard.

Now, on the other end of that hero’s journey, A’ja gets to enjoy what’s in front of her: the new challenge of being the chased and the hunted.

The greats always find fuel. Any perceived slight can power a championship run (just ask Michael Jordan). But the idea that Wilson is categorically underrated or disrespected by WNBA fans, media or sponsors can probably be laid to rest. Will there always be a hater here or there? Someone who believes their favorite is better or employ bad faith tactics to try and bring Wilson down a level? Absolutely. And, to be clear, those people (specifically in this instance), shouldn’t be entertained as good faith actors to engage in debate with.

Instead, what can be great about this moment is allowing Wilson to finally live in the truth of her greatness. For nearly a decade, the 29 year old has battled tooth and nail to assert herself atop that pedestal. Now, after so much fighting and questions and wonder about if the league (and the people in charge of framing narratives around it) would recognize her for the generational talent she is, Wilson gets to revel in the idea that she has made it. You can’t have a discussion about the greatest women’s basketball player of all time without including her name in that discussion.

And the best thing of all is that we get to be around to witness it in person.