A’ja Wilson’s basketball dominance is driven by joy. Watch her work at Paris Olympics.
PARIS — The best women’s basketball player in the world knows that if she were a guard instead of a forward, you would likely appreciate her game more.
She understands if she had the ball in her hands constantly, launching deep 3s and threading passes in transition, you would fall hard for her skill set. That if hers was among the newer names in sports, you might be more fascinated by her.
She gets it: The sport she dominates is exploding in part because of the rookies we all know.
A’ja Wilson does not care.
You can’t appreciate her greatness? You don’t see how she impacts every possession on both ends of the court? Your jaw doesn’t drop at her pristine footwork, the fact that she can catch anything you throw in her general direction and her ability to leap off the floor to swat shots while keeping the ball in play? What she has is a rare combo of skills.
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She will keep piling up double-doubles, pushing the boundaries of what a forward in this game can do and, if all goes according to plan, lead the U.S. women's basketball team to a record eighth straight Olympic gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Maybe the crowning of the latest U.S. dynasty, led by an exceptional talent, will make you tune in. If not, Wilson figures, that’s your loss.
“Forwards, centers, whatever you want to call us, we don’t get the love we should,” Wilson told USA TODAY Sports. “But I don’t pay it any mind because the true fans, the ones who really understand and love the game, they understand how forwards and centers are a huge part. So yeah, I feel like we’re under appreciated. But I love my position.”
Still, the best player in the world knows there’s likely to be more eyeballs than ever on women’s basketball this summer. She can’t wait to put on a show.
“My biggest thing when we’re talking about these times is making sure that the product on the court is something people fall in love with,” Wilson says. “When you’re talking about a world stage, now is the best time to be you. It is the best time to be the best.”
It’s the best time, in other words, to be A’ja Wilson. It’s a joyful time, too.
A’ja Wilson, New York Times bestselling author
Paris marks the second Olympics for Wilson, 27. In Tokyo she started all six games for the U.S., averaging 16.5 points and 7.3 rebounds. Her Olympic debut was special because she did it with her college coach, Dawn Staley, who Wilson played for at South Carolina from 2015-18.
But France will be special too, Wilson said, and not only because games will be played in front of packed crowds after spectators were not allowed in Tokyo because of COVID concerns.
The Games come just five months after Wilson published her memoir “Dear Black Girls,” an instant New York Times bestseller. Filled with off-the-court stories about the times Wilson has felt dismissed or downright hated because of her skin color, it’s described as “a rallying cry” for Black women everywhere. She writes how, in the fourth grade, she was told she’d have to stay outside during a classmate’s birthday party because the dad of the home didn’t like Black people. She also talks candidly about the loss of her grandmother, a towering figure in Wilson’s life.
Wilson wrote it partially because she wants young women who look like her to have something she says she lacked: A public figure who sees them, understands them and knows what it’s like to have society tell them they are not enough.
She knows the Olympics have huge cross-cultural appeal. Many viewers are casual sports fans at best. But what if a little girl watches Wilson, a little girl who doesn’t know or care about basketball, and sees someone who looks like her thriving, and doing it joyfully? What if that little girl watches Wilson and knows that someday, she’ll find her place, too?
“I dove into spaces and things that I never really imagined sharing with the world,” Wilson says of her book. “But it was so much fun to share because it shows I’m human … I feel like a lot of people may look at me and be like, ‘Oh she has it all, we ain’t worried about A’ja, she’s got it.’
“And it’s like no, I don’t. And I’m going to be the first person to tell you that. I love connecting with people who weren’t just like, ‘Sign my jersey!’ or ‘I love watching you play!’ It was more about, ‘I was grieving my grandmother, too, and could relate to that part.’ Being able to connect with them on that, something other than, ‘My jump shot’s not the best, yours is,’ it was so real.”
Timing is good on the court, too. Halfway through the WNBA season Wilson is the clear favorite to win her third MVP after leading the league in scoring (27.2), rebounds (12.0) and blocks (2.9). Just before the Olympic break, she set a WNBA record for consecutive games (six) with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds. Though she’s been one of the top players in the league since her rookie season 2018, Wilson has gone “to another level” this season, Connecticut Sun coach Stephanie White said. White marveled at Wilson’s ability to “get better every year,” and do so with startling efficiency.
Also of note: Wilson's signature sneaker, a rarity for women athletes and even more so for Black women, launches next year.
Three other Las Vegas Aces made the Olympic team — Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young. There’s no question Wilson is surrounded by superior talent both at home in the WNBA and abroad. But she has become a one-woman wrecking crew, her mission not only to win gold again but also make sure everyone knows this is her team and her time. She’s a 27-year-old superstar just coming into her prime, set to dominate her sport for the next decade.
“She’s Catwoman,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “Her second jump is just as powerful and dynamic as her first, which is really rare. She’s so quick off the floor, she covers a lot of ground, covers a lot of defensive mistakes. She’s turned herself into a pretty good ball handler, she makes great reads, she shoots 3s, jumpers, she can take you to the hole and finish with either hand, she can put you on the block.
“I was trying to think of a comp for a guy, and there really isn’t one right now — she’s that special. She’s an absolute nightmare to try to shut down.”
‘The rebirth’ of A’ja Wilson
People close to Wilson noticed a shift in 2020, when the WNBA played a condensed 22-game schedule in a COVID bubble in Bradenton, Florida. There, Wilson earned her first MVP trophy after averaging 20.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.0 blocks and 1.2 steals per game, shooting 48% from the field and leading Vegas to the best record of the regular season (the Aces lost to Seattle in the Finals). The WNBA surprised her with the award on ESPN, and Wilson FaceTimed her parents, Roscoe Jr. and Eva, to share the news. Their screams of celebration echoed Wilson’s joy.
“Man, it was the rebirth of A’ja after the bubble,” Wilson said. “Leading up to that point, I always felt like I needed to prove myself in the league to get something — like I had to prove myself to get a sponsorship deal or my name in a graphic or on the ticker. That was my mindset … that first MVP, it was a sense of belonging. Like, OK, now I'm stamped in this league and my name is not going anywhere.”
And to think before that honor, Wilson doubted herself.
The No. 1 high school prospect in the 2014 class, Wilson spurned offers from UConn, Tennessee and North Carolina, among others, to stay home — she grew up just 15 miles from Colonial Life Arena in Columbia — and help Staley win South Carolina's first national title. When the Gamecocks did that in 2017, the university responded by erecting a statue of Wilson.
Wilson went No. 1 in the 2018 WNBA draft to the then-beleaguered Aces. She was the second of three consecutive No. 1 picks for the franchise, following Plum in 2017 and before Young in 2019. Though she won Rookie of the Year honors and was an All-Star in 2018 and ’19, it wasn’t until that MVP season that Wilson started to fully understand what she was capable of.
“That (2020 season) was the best part of my life, because I grew up,” Wilson said. “It was like OK, this is it, this is what (former Vegas coach) Bill Laimbeer was telling me my rookie year when he said, ‘This is going to be your team, you’ve got to lead us.’ I looked at him like he was crazy. I just got out of college, fresh off the stage from graduating and now you’re telling me I need to lead a franchise? But after the bubble I was like, this is what he means — this is my calling, my purpose, to make sure we are in the conversation every single year.”
It crystallized in 2021, when the Aces brought in Hammon. A former WNBA star in her own right, Hammon spent eight years as an assistant in the San Antonio Spurs organization, studying under the legendary Gregg Popovich, winner of five NBA titles.
Wilson flourished under Hammon, winning another MVP in 2022 and leading Vegas to back-to-back WNBA championships. She and Hammon credit losing out on last year’s MVP trophy — Olympic teammate Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty took home the award, finishing in front of Connecticut’s Alyssa Thomas and Wilson — with fueling the Aces’ second title run, where Wilson won Finals MVP honors.
“She’s more fierce when she’s pissed,” Hammon said, a nod to the anonymous fourth-place vote that caused all sorts of ruckus and “ignited something in me that I’ve never felt before in my career,” Wilson said. That someone had the audacity to vote her fourth still grates at her — and it’s directly related to the tear she’s been on this season.
But Wilson’s dominance this summer isn’t just about the fact that she controls every possession on both ends of the floor but more so how she does it: With an effusive and infectious spirit. Hammon said Wilson “oozes joy.”
“It’s my favorite thing about her,” Hammon said. “And she wins the right way. A lot of people win and it’s not very fun — she wins and everyone around her is having fun.”
That’s a conscious choice, Wilson said. She’s giggly and giddy on the court, in love with her life and her career. She hopes everyone’s takeaway when they watch her is that she’s having a blast. She’s pranking rookie Kate Martin, making fun of Hammon, tweeting at Usher, unapologetic for all of it.
“Normally the pictures you see, I’m screaming, veins popping out but realistically, I like to have fun,” Wilson said. “That’s my biggest thing. This game, I don’t take for granted the people who have laid the foundation for me to play — so why not have fun while doing it? Knowing that I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams, that a lot of people don’t like to see me in these spaces, that’s my biggest thing, that’s why I have that joy.”
Now the question is, will you tune in to witness it?
Email Lindsay Schnell at [email protected] and follow her on social media @Lindsay_Schnell