Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson went off on Friday night for 40 points and 12 rebounds in a wire-to-wire 113-89 victory over the Washington Mystics. With her historic, career-best performance, she delivered the latest entry in this season's thrilling WNBA MVP race.
The Mystics had no answers for Wilson, who shot 17-of-25 from the field and generally did whatever she wanted in the paint. Her rare combination of size and skill is often too much for her opponents, but was especially so against the Mystics. Time and again she was able to create high-quality opportunities, either through brute force or impeccable technique.
Here's a quick rundown of the accolades from Wilson's big night:
- Career-high scoring performance
- First player in WNBA history to score 40 points without making a 3-pointer
- 10th 40-point, 10-rebound game in WNBA history, and first Aces player to do so
- Tied Kelsey Plum for the highest-scoring game in Aces franchise history
For the season, Wilson is now averaging 21.2 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game, while shooting 54.4 percent from the field. Only Lauren Jackson in 2007 has ever put up those same numbers for an entire season. All of those marks are career-highs and she ranks fourth in the league in scoring, second in rebounds and first in blocks; no one else is in the top-five in all three categories. Along the way, she's led the defending champion Aces to a historic 26-3 record that has them in first place.
After winning MVP and Defensive Player of the Year last season, Wilson is attempting to do the double again this season. The only player to ever win back-to-back MVPs was Cynthia Cooper in 1997 and 1998, and no one has won consecutive Defensive Player of the Year awards since Alana Beard in 2017 and 2018. Of course, no one has ever won both honors in two straight seasons, but Wilson has a real chance.
Wilson's main issue this season has not been her own play, but the fact that she's going against another all-time great in their prime in Breanna Stewart. The New York Liberty forward has issued a number of MVP statements of her own this summer, and is also putting up historic numbers on an elite team. With just a month remaining in the regular season, the race is neck-and-neck; not only by the metrics, but by the sportsbooks as well. Stewart is -135 and Wilson is -110, per Caesars.
Last season, Wilson won MVP over Stewart by an extremely narrow margin of 478 points to 446. It could be even closer this time around.
