A’ja Wilson named unanimous WNBA MVP: How Aces star forward earned league honor for third time

As the Las Vegas Aces begin their quest for a third consecutive WNBA championship, their star forward, A’ja Wilson, will lead the team having received the league’s highest honor. On Sunday, Wilson was named the 2024 WNBA MVP, becoming only the second player ever to win the award unanimously and the first since the Houston Comets’ Cynthia Cooper-Dyke in the league’s 1997 inaugural season. 

That Wilson took home the award was of little surprise. Her season was arguably the most dominant in WNBA history. She set a new WNBA single-season scoring record (26.9 points per game) and also set single-season records with 1,021 total points — she was the first player ever to cross the 1,000-point mark — and 451 total rebounds. Wilson was also the first player to lead the WNBA in total points, rebounds and blocks (98) in a season.

“I don’t want it to ever get lost on how good (A’ja) is,” Aces coach Becky Hammon told reporters in mid-September. “She just does it all. She’s in the middle of a run that sometimes I want to shake her and say, ‘Do you know how good you are?’ But then I don’t want to shake her because I don’t want to wake her up. She can just stay in whatever zone she’s in.”

Records shattered. Milestones conquered.

A’ja Wilson claims her third MVP title with a historic season for the ages 🌟

2024 @Kia WNBA MVP #KiaMVP pic.twitter.com/5fDSXwkYzf

— WNBA (@WNBA) September 22, 2024

With the victory, Wilson has now won the MVP in three of her seven WNBA seasons, including 2020 and 2022. She joins Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Lauren Jackson as the only other three-time MVP recipients. Wilson could also join a trio of three-time Defensive Player of the Year winners (Swoopes, Tamika Catchings and Sylvia Fowles) when that award is announced later this postseason. 

Wilson finished third in last year’s MVP voting in a historically close race, behind the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart and the Connecticut Sun’s Alyssa Thomas. Wilson received one fourth-place vote, and later said she used that as a form of motivation. 

“Whoever you are out there that voted me fourth (for MVP), thank you. Thank you so much,” Wilson said during Las Vegas’ championship rally last fall. “I wanna say I appreciate you, ’cause that just means that I got a lot more work to do.”

The moment ✨

“I cannot thank you all enough. I hope you guys understand how much you mean to me. I hope you guys know that this trophy is nothing without y’all. We’ve been through the ringer – and we gon’ continue to go through the ringer – but one thing y’all don’t ever have… pic.twitter.com/NOnm0BP4yr

— Las Vegas Aces (@LVAces) September 22, 2024

Beyond Wilson, there was little drama as to who would take second in the MVP voting. Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier (467 points) received 66 of the 67 votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters. Stewart received the other second-place vote and finished third overall (295 points).

Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark finished fourth in the voting (130 points) and Thomas finished fifth (83 points). Players were awarded 10 points for a first-place vote, seven for second, five for third, three for a fourth and one for fifth.

In the 2024 regular season, Wilson was named the Kia WNBA Western Conference Player of the Month four times (May, June, July and September) and the WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week six times. If she wins MVP again in her career, she will become the first player in WNBA history to do so four times. 

Wilson and the Aces begin their postseason run on Sunday. Las Vegas is the No. 4 seed and hosts the No. 5 Seattle Storm, with tipoff set for 10 p.m. ET. 

Required reading

(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)