{"id":128128,"date":"2025-03-14T10:51:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T14:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=128128"},"modified":"2025-03-14T10:55:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T14:55:51","slug":"aja-wilson-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/14\/aja-wilson-mvp\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0A’ja Wilson Can Reign Supreme With Another MVP Here’s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"

A’ja Wilson<\/a> was one of the biggest talking points of the 2024 WNBA season<\/a>. Last year, she became the first player to eclipse the 1,000-point mark en route to becoming the unanimous MVP. The 28-year-old remarkably averaged 26.9 points, 11.9 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in what will go down as a historic campaign. This was Wilson’s third MVP with the other two coming in 2022 and 2020. <\/span>She was also named MVP of the tournament when Team USA women won gold at the Paris Olympics last year. Let’s delve into why she can win league MVP again next campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

A’ja Wilson Can Reign Supreme With Another MVP Here’s Why<\/span><\/h2>\n

A’ja Wilson Will Be Determined to Succeed After Playoff Heartbreak<\/h3>\n

Despite ending the regular season relatively well last year, the Las Vegas Aces didn’t fear too well in the playoffs. Becky Hammon’s squad beat the Seattle Storm in the first round before getting swept in the semi-finals by the New York Liberty<\/a>. The disappointment of failing short in the playoffs will only make Wilson more determined to get more out of her teammates next season. She will have an extra chip on her shoulder as she really wanted to three-peat last campaign. An extra motivated Wilson is not a sight the rest of the WNBA will want to see as she’ll reach new heights. What will hurt her the most is that she was dethroned by a player Breanna Stewart <\/a>who is viewed as one of her biggest rivals.<\/p>\n

Jewell Loyd Can Help Her<\/h3>\n

The addition of Jewell Loyd<\/a> will help Wilson as it will lessen the scoring burden on her. This is beneficial as they traded their second-highest scorer, Kelsey Plum<\/a>, who averaged 17.8 points last season. Loyd averaged 19.7 points, which was the most of any Seattle Storm<\/a> player last season. This is a valuable addition as if multiple players are guarding Wilson then Loyd will be left open. As Loyd is a high-volume scorer having several wide-open looks in a game could benefit her. Loyd is also more than capable of creating shots for herself which will make the team less dependent on Wilson.<\/p>\n

A’ja Wilson is a Complete Player<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Wilson is the definition of a complete player. She can score buckets on players in the league and lock down those trying to score against her. She led the league in blocks for four seasons in her career (2020, 2022 2023, 2024). This led to her being named the Defensive Player of the Year in 2022 and 2023.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson is also a remarkable rebounder which makes her more valuable for any team that she suits up for. Her rebounds change the pace of a game, which helps her team win. The 28-year-old\u2019s offensive rebounds give the Las Vegas Aces another opportunity to score while her defensive rebounds limit her opponents to one shot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being efficient defensively and offensively puts her above most MVP candidates. Napheesa Collier<\/a> comes to mind when we think of players who can rival Wilson on both ends of the floor. She showed this last season when she won Defensive Player of the Year averaging 1.4 blocks and 7.5 defensive rebounds. In this year’s Unrivalled League, she has gone up another level averaging<\/a> 8.9 defensive rebounds, 1.4 blocks, and 2 steals.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A’ja Wilson was one of the biggest talking points of the 2024 WNBA season. Last year, she became the first player to eclipse the 1,000-point mark en route to becoming the unanimous MVP. The 28-year-old remarkably averaged 26.9 points, 11.9 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in what will go down as a historic campaign. This was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5455,"featured_media":128631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,3,49709],"tags":[1631,3856,3859,49658],"class_list":["post-128128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-news","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-jewell-loyd","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-napheesa-collier"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128128"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128633,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128128\/revisions\/128633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}