Eight years into her W career, A’ja’s résumé already reads like a legend’s. She’s got three MVPs, two WNBA championship rings, seven All-Star appearances, and a pair of Olympic gold medals. That’s something most players could only dream of, but A’ja isn’t done just yet. She’s now after a third championship and a fourth MVP. Yet if you ask her what fuels the fire, it ain’t just her unmatched skill set. It’s also a spark Kobe Bryant ignited in her heart years ago.

On Wednesday night, after dropping 34 points with 10 rebounds to lead the Aces to an 81-75 win over the Dream, A’ja became the first player in WNBA history to record the most 30-point games before turning 30 years old. When asked how she felt after the milestone, she leaned on Kobe Bryant’s words: “Oh, good, man. It’s… look what Kobe say, rest at the end, not the middle. So we’re going to keep going with it.”

That mantra seemed fitting, as it was her dominance that fueled the Aces’ 12th straight victory and lifted them into sole possession of second place in the W’s standings. It all came in the third quarter, where the Dream’s offense collapsed under Las Vegas’ suffocating defense. Atlanta shot just 2-for-19 in the frame, while Wilson personally took over with eight straight points, including a set of back-to-back threes, sparking a decisive 15-0 run. But this ain’t the first time Wilson has powered her run with the help of a mantra that Kobe himself borrowed from his high school English teacher.

It was only in 2016, while accepting an Icon Award at the ESPYs, that he discussed it. And ever since, it’s been helping Wilson out. Even last year during the Olympic campaign, she relied on it. “It’s actually my phone’s screensaver. Kobe said, ‘Rest at the end, not in the middle…’ And that is something that I really approached this year with,” she revealed last year to Megan Armstrong for Uproxx. At that time, the Aces were 16-8 and the U.S. was about to begin its Olympic campaign. “I just keep telling myself, ‘Rest at the end, not in the middle.’ I just keep playing, and I keep pushing through… Trying to push through these walls, so that I can push through (them) for my teammates.”

By the end of the year, she won her third WNBA MVP and became only the second unanimous MVP in the league, receiving all 67 votes. She even topped the league as the 2024 Peak Performer for points per game with her 26.9 average. But what we see today is just a pinch of the mentality Wilson borrowed from her role model.

When she met Kobe and his daughter Gigi for the first time back on May 26, 2019, she knew it was an incredible moment. “That moment there was just incredible because you’re talking about someone that is the GOAT of basketball. Someone that you would hope that you could get a pinch of his mentality, his mindset in order to be great,” Wilson told Marie Claire after being named their sports cover star last year. And she did just that, “got a pinch of his mindset” and applied it to her game. Now, she’s defying all odds and is in the running to become the only player across the W to have four MVP titles. But can she do so?

Even Ace’s HC can swear by A’ja’s dominance!

A’ja Wilson is one of the rare stars who stick to a single team for their growth. So far, she’s started 261 games out of 263 she’s played for the Aces. Every game you see her perform, she gets even better. It’s not just us who believe it, but also HC Becky Hammon, who admitted it in the last press conference after a win against the Chicago Sky.

“She’ll do something almost every game where it’s like, ooh, that was nasty. Where it’s just so demonstrative, some of her blocks are so physically dominant… I equate it to like a posterized dunk in the men’s game. Like, it just gets people on their feet. How demonstrative some of her blocks are. She can guard one through five,” HC shared in a postgame press conference after a win against the Sky.

Do we need proof? Averaging 23.4 points this season, she stands second in the points table, only behind Napheesa Collier. But that’s not all, as she also brings 10.3 rebounds and a league-high 2.2 blocks per game this season. Now with just four games remaining, it makes sense why nearly 25% of WNBA GMs were sure that she would snatch it again this year. And that was their prediction before the beginning of the 2025 season. But now, we’ll see—will people’s trust, along with Kobe’s success mantra, be enough to snatch what she’s aiming for?