Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025 | 2 a.m.<\/p>\n
One of the best defensive players in WNBA history, the Atlanta Dream\u2019s Brittney Griner, was determined not to give Aces star A\u2019ja Wilson an easy look as the final minute approached of an August 19 game at Michelob Ultra Arena.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-9 Griner succeeded in getting the 6-foot-4 Wilson to settle for a fadeaway jumper, but it didn\u2019t matter. Wilson nailed what wound up to be the game-winning shot and final points in a 74-72 Las Vegas victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew once I got the ball, I had to shoot it,\u201d Wilson said afterwards.<\/p>\n
On the other end of the floor in the final possession of the game, Wilson clung to Griner to help turn away any thought of an entry pass and boxed the veteran out to prevent a second-chance scoring opportunity.<\/p>\n
Wilson has been outstanding even for her world-class standards during a three-week stretch that has turned the Aces\u2019 season around. The 29-year-old has excelled in every area to lift the Aces from potentially missing the playoffs to fighting for home-court advantage in the first round as the regular season winds down.<\/p>\n
The victory over the Dream was the Aces\u2019 eighth straight, and as of press time, Las Vegas had notched 10 straight wins heading into a game in Chicago on August 25.<\/p>\n
Wilson is also making individual history seemingly on a nightly basis. She coincidentally surpassed Griner in the Dream matchup for most 30-plus point, 10-plus rebound and five-plus block games in WNBA history with her third ever. Four games before, she became the first player ever in the league to record a 30-point, 20-rebound game in a victory over the Connecticut Sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t let the milestones go by (without enjoying them) because I don\u2019t take this game for granted at all,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
But it seems like the WNBA, if not the sports world as a whole, is taking Wilson\u2019s brilliance for granted.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s gotten praise for her recent tear, but not enough. She\u2019s reasserted herself in a tier of her own as the best player in the world and should be treated as such. Most notably, Wilson is not garnering the WNBA Most Valuable Player award buzz that her performances warrant.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s the third choice in the betting odds at a price of 6-to-1 at BetMGM, behind Minnesota\u2019s Napheesa Collier and Phoenix\u2019s Alyssa Thomas.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Collier is having an outstanding year and edges Wilson in points and assists per game for the league\u2019s best team, but she\u2019s missed a handful of recent games with an ankle injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old Thomas is smashing records of her own, having recently become the first WNBA player to ever post triple-doubles in three straight games and has become the face of the turnaround Mercury. But neither traditional statistics nor more modern all-encompassing numbers paint her as anywhere near as impactful as Wilson or Collier.<\/p>\n
Wilson seems to be a victim of her own success, as the defending and three-time former WNBA MVP.<\/p>\n
The awards voting base has been notoriously reticent about giving the same player back-to-back MVP nods. It hasn\u2019t happened since the first two years of the league in 1997 and 1998 when the Houston Comets\u2019 Cynthia Cooper was too clear of a choice to deny.<\/p>\n
Wilson was already victimized by the trend in 2023 when she controversially finished third behind the New York Liberty\u2019s Breanna Stewart and Thomas, then with the Sun.<\/p>\n
It might be even harder for her this year because a fourth MVP award would break a tie with Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Lauren Jackson to give Wilson the most in WNBA history.<\/p>\n
But that shouldn\u2019t factor into the decision. The Aces\u2019 overall dip from their back-to-back championship form in 2022 and 2023 shouldn\u2019t matter either.<\/p>\n
Think of how far they would have fallen without Wilson, who\u2019s now single-handedly elevating a flawed and aging roster back into contention. She\u2019s playing better than ever, and that\u2019s remarkable given her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re bringing double teams to her, triple teams to her and she\u2019s having to navigate that and play out of it,\u201d teammate Jackie Young said recently. \u201cShe\u2019s still able to put up insane numbers every night.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025 | 2 a.m. One of the best defensive players in WNBA history, the Atlanta…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":182114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-182113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115105770107525195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}