I don’t know about you, but my feed was overflowing with “singular greatness of A’ja Wilson” stories all through 2024. And rightly so, it all ended with her bagging unanimous MVP honors, no debate needed. But then came 2025, and A’ja had us buzzing again when she said this is the strongest she’s ever felt. Well, it didn’t start the way I, or probably many of you, expected. But the lesson here, folks? Don’t you dare doubt A’ja Wilson. Becky Hammon never has and never will. And yet, what Becky actually loves most about A’ja isn’t just basketball.

Las Vegas and its captain, A’ja Wilson, just keep rolling. With 36 points and 13 rebounds in a 91-81 win over the Mystics, the Aces locked in their 10th straight win, improving to 24-14. It’s a massive turnaround from that shaky first half of the season. There is no doubt that Wilson will once again be in the running for the WNBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. She’s averaging 22.8 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 3.2 assists while shooting almost 49 percent from the field. So how could her coach not say it without even blinking?

When a reporter asked Becky Hammon about Wilson’s MVP candidacy, she didn’t hesitate: “I mean, there’s zero doubts in my mind.” Hammon pointed out A’ja’s insane efficiency and how she’s sitting top-three in pretty much every major stat category.  When another reporter brought up her pregame prediction of A’ja’s stat line when Hammon said, “I’m not surprised. It’s like, it’s just become normal,” she corrected herself, saying, “I don’t ever… don’t ever want to get used to or be like, oh, that’s just normal. It’s not normal what she’s doing.”

After all, she literally broke her own record, becoming the player with the most games of at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in a single season. She passed herself. Now she’s sitting at 39 such games in her career, while Diana Taurasi has 62. But here’s the part that hits different because Hammon didn’t just gush about the basketball stuff. She shifted gears to A’ja, the person. “Man, if I could have a vote for leadership, if there was a leadership award, even besides stuff that have nothing to do with basketball. She’s the most thoughtful superstar I’ve ever been around.”

She even gave an example: how A’ja once had A1s made for her teammates. Becky said, “She has the thought process and the forethought to be like, you know, I’m going to do something nice for somebody else.” Then she admitted she had to stop because she’d get too emotional. “Nobody’s doing what she’s doing,” she concluded.

But do we even need Becky to spell it out?  We’ve seen A’ja lift her teammates, celebrate them like nobody else, and show empathy not just for people she knows but even for those she hasn’t met. Off the court, she runs the A’ja Wilson Foundation, working on dyslexia and anti-bullying programs. She’s also been part of the WNBPA’s Social Justice Council.  She is just someone who genuinely cares. It’s in-built.

All that, while still being brilliant on the court and never letting the three MVPs go to her. Can she make it four? Well, insiders think she has a good shot. 

Insider says A’ja Wilson’s dominance is tightening 

For most of the season, the WNBA MVP race looked like a one-woman show with Napheesa Collier leading the pack. She had the Minnesota Lynx sitting on top of the league and was putting up the best numbers of her career,  23.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, and shooting a career-high 53.7% from the field. Everything about her season screamed MVP. But the conversation has shifted.

Collier’s ankle injury has sidelined her for multiple games, and in that gap, A’ja Wilson has been flat-out unstoppable. She’s not just filling the box score, she’s tilting the entire MVP conversation. WNBA insider Ros Gold-Onwude summed it up perfectly on Good Follow: “A’ja is absolutely putting pressure on this MVP case. For A’ja it’s not just physical dominance, for me it’s her mental dominance.”

Wilson has racked up back-to-back WNBA Player of the Week awards. And with the Aces climbing the standings, her timing couldn’t be better. Gold-Onwude even pointed out the obvious math: “The more [Collier] misses and A’ja dominates and the Aces find ways to continue to climb the standings, the tighter this thing will get.”

Now, it’ll be tough for Wilson to replicate her historic 2024 season, but that might not even be necessary. If Collier can’t get fully back before the season winds down, Wilson’s late surge could be enough to tip the scales. However, Collier is probable on the latest injury report, so we might see her back soon. But until then, A’ja’s making her case loud and clear.