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Alexa Philippou, ESPNSep 11, 2024, 08:22 PM ET
- Covers women’s college basketball and the WNBA
- Previously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant
- Stanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Enquirer
INDIANAPOLIS — Toward the end of the first half Wednesday night, Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson received the ball from teammate Chelsea Gray, jabbed to the left and then took fellow former South Carolina Gamecock Aliyah Boston off the dribble, pulling up at the free throw line for a jump shot.
It has been a remarkable run for the two-time — presumably soon-to-be three-time — WNBA MVP. And in Wednesday’s 86-75 win over the red-hot Indiana Fever, Wilson etched her name in the history books once more by recording the most points ever in a WNBA season.
Wilson’s pull-up jumper with 26.4 seconds left in the first half gave her 941 points this season, two more than Jewell Loyd‘s previous record of 939 set last season. With 27 points by game’s end, Wilson’s point total for 2024 sits at 956, putting her 44 points from becoming the first WNBA player to score 1,000 in a single season.
The accomplishment came in Wilson’s return after sitting out her first game since 2019 because of a minor ankle injury.
“It feels great because now people will stop talking about it,” Wilson quipped about the record after the game. “Felt like it was just like lingering, lingering, lingering, so I’m glad that we got it done.
“I don’t want to sound cliché when I say this, but I don’t get any of that without every single teammate along the way. And I’m so grateful to be able to play with selfless women. They give it their all every single day, and they’re their pure selves, and that’s what I love the most,” she added, holding back tears. “My teammates, they’re the heartbeat, they keep me going.”
Wilson, who was named WNBA MVP in 2020 and 2022 and Finals MVP in 2023, has had a sensational run over the past few years, leading the Aces to back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023 as they became the first WNBA franchise to repeat in over two decades. She also led the U.S. women’s national team to an eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Paris this summer, earning tournament MVP.
This season, Las Vegas hasn’t been quite the same unstoppable squad, sitting in fourth in the standings after finishing with the No. 1 spot the previous two years. The Aces have had to rely more than ever on Wilson, and she has answered the call on both ends.
Coach Becky Hammon said pregame that Wilson’s season should be considered the best ever in league history, and there are plenty of facts to back that up: Wilson’s scoring average of 27.3 points — on 52.1% shooting from the field — is on track to be the highest single-season average in WNBA history. And in addition to being a double-double machine with her consistency on the glass (11.9 rebounds per game), she’s a premier defender as the reigning two-time defensive player of the year.
Wilson’s teammate Alysha Clark implored onlookers to appreciate Wilson for what she has managed to do on the court.
“One day she’s not going to be here. She’s going to retire and go on and live her life, and people are going to marvel at what she’s done. And I’m like, marvel at it now,” Clark said. “It’s impressive as hell. And what she does on a consistent basis, from day one of this season, there was no doubt who the best player in the world was.”
Added Hammon: “You’re really starting to see a really, really gifted woman come into this maturity stage of not only her life, but basketball career. She’s not just the best player in the world, she might be the most loved and adored by her teammates. I mean, this woman is special.”
Wilson’s special night highlighted the Aces’ fifth win in six games, their only loss in that stretch coming Sunday without Wilson against the league-best New York Liberty. Hammon has been pleased with her team’s defensive effort in recent weeks, including Wednesday as it held a high-powered Fever offense to 75 points on 39.7% shooting.
As part of that, Las Vegas’ physicality and strength threw off rookie superstar Caitlin Clark, who had a subdued game by her standards with 16 points, 6 assists and 5 turnovers.
“The attention to detail,” Hammon said. “We’re locked in. We’re doing our base well. And when you do your base well and you’re locked in on the base, when we do those things, we tend to be on the same page, and we can get multiple stops in a row, which gives our offense multiple opportunities. … We’re figuring it out on the defensive end.”
The Fever thought they left some points on the board and perhaps could have moved the ball more. But they’ll have one more shot at knocking off the two-time defending champs — the only team they’ve yet to beat this season — Friday.
“I still feel like we haven’t really given them the best that we have,” Clark said, “so I think Friday is a great opportunity for us to do that.”
Added Kelsey Mitchell: “I think that we all kind of lapsed, and we took whatever they gave us, and we didn’t have to. And so I think going into our next maturation, our next phase on Friday, we can’t take anything. We have to punch first, and when they do punch back, we’ve got to be able to stand up and get back to it.”
