South Carolina women's basketball: M'VP again - A'ja Wilson earns historic third MVP honor
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In one of the most anti-climactic votes ever, A’ja Wilson was named the 2024 WNBA MVP. The only drama was whether the win would be unanimous.
It was.
Wilson became the second player in WNBA history to earn unanimous MVP honors, taking home all 67 first-place votes.
Previously only one player in WNBA history had been named unanimous MVP. In 1997, the first season of the league, Cynthia Cooper won the unanimous honor.
Wilson is now a three-time MVP, joining Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Lauren Jackson for the most MVP honors. She also won in 2020 and 2022.
Wilson was infamously snubbed last season when an unknown voter inexplicably ranked her fourth on the MVP ballot. That snub turned into motivation, and in the year since Wilson has gone scorched-earth on the rest of the basketball world.
Following the snub, Wilson led Las Vegas to the WNBA championship last season, their second in a row, and was named Finals MVP.
This year, Wilson channeled that motivation into arguably the greatest season in WNBA history. She averaged 26.9 points, 11.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 2.6 blocks, and 1.8 steals.
Wilson became the first player in league history to score 1,000 points. She set WNBA records for points scored (1,021), points averaged (26.9), rebounds (451), field goals made (385), and defensive rebounds (372).
Wilson also led the league in blocks, free throws made and attempted, steal-to-turnover ratio, and efficiency (the latter wasn’t even close). She was third in steals and seventh in field goal percentage (directly behind Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso).
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Wilson also set records for the most 20-point/10-rebound games in a season. She became the first player with 25 points, 15 rebounds, five assists, five blocks, and no turnovers in a game and the second with 40 points and 15 rebounds in a game.
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In between, Wilson led Team USA to a gold medal at the Olympics with an iconic 21-point, 13-rebound, four-block gold medal game. Interviewed after the game on NBC, Dawn Staley said the key to the game was, “At the end of the day, we had A’ja Wilson and they didn’t.”
Wilson was named Tournament MVP and set a USA Basketball record for blocks in a single Olympics and is also the career leader in average blocks per game at 2.3.
She averaged 18.7 points for the Olympics, the second-highest scoring average in Team USA history and her career Olympic scoring average is now 17.6, the best ever for an American.
Wilson averaged 10.2 rebounds for the Olympics, the second-best average ever and her career average of 8.8 is also second-highest. Her four double-doubles were an American record.
Those Olympic exploits, as dominant as she was, were merely an interlude for what is arguably the most dominant WNBA season ever.
It’s been a season to remember off the court as well. In May, ahead of an exhibition game back in her old home at Colonial Life Arena, Nike announced Wilson’s long-awaited shoe. The shoe is set to debut in 2025. More recently, Wilson has garnered tabloid headlines for rumoredly dating NBA star Bam Adebayo.
