{"id":131172,"date":"2025-03-29T07:24:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-29T11:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=131172"},"modified":"2025-03-29T07:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T11:24:34","slug":"aja-wilson-competition-for-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/29\/aja-wilson-competition-for-mvp\/","title":{"rendered":"A\u2019ja Wilson Has Stern Competition For Her MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\u2019ja Wilson<\/span><\/a> will be a topic of interest next season. Last year, <\/span>she became the first player to eclipse the 1,000-point mark<\/span><\/a>, a remarkable feat given the games in the WNBA are shorter. She also a<\/span>veraged 26.9 points, 2.3 assists, and 11.9 <\/span>rebounds<\/span> en route to being the unanimous MVP. The 28-year-old’s defensive exploits led to her finishing second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting behind <\/span>Napheesa Collier<\/span><\/a>. Despite having a historic season last year, she still should work on her game this offseason. Many players will be motivated by her achievements and strive to be better than her next campaign. These three players could compete with A\u2019ja Wilson for the MVP award next season. Let’s explore who these three players are and why they could challenge Wilson for the MVP award.<\/span><\/p>\n

A\u2019ja Wilson Has Stern Competition For Her MVP<\/h2>\n

Napheesa Collier<\/h3>\n

In many other seasons, <\/span>Napheesa Collier<\/span> would have won the MVP. She <\/span>averaged 20.4 points, 1.4 blocks, 3.4 assists, and 9.7 rebounds<\/span> in what will go down as an outstanding campaign. She continued where she left off in Unrivaled, <\/span>averaging 25.7 points, 10.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.4 blocks<\/span><\/a>. Collier also defeated <\/span>Aaliyah Edwards<\/span><\/a> in the 1v1 tournament final.\u00a0 Last season, she won Defensive Player of the Year. The 28-year-old fully deserved it, as she is one of the best two-way players in the league. <\/span>The Olympic gold medalist will be determined<\/span> to win the championship next season after heartbreak in the finals against the New York Liberty. Last season’s heartbreak may spur her to be an even better version of herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Breanna Stewart<\/h3>\n

Breanna Stewart<\/span><\/a> will want to kick off next season after winning the championship with the New York Liberty. She has been one of Wilson’s most fierce rivals throughout her career. The 30-year-old has competed against Wilson in playoff finals with the Seattle Storm and the New York Liberty. She had to beat Wilson and the Aces in the semifinals for her championship last year and triumph with the Seattle Storm in 2020. Likewise, Wilson has needed to beat Stewart for her triumphs in 2022 and 2023. They also trained with each other at the Paris Olympics with Team USA women\u2019s basketball squad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Caitlin Clark<\/h3>\n

Caitlin Clark<\/span><\/a> is the youngest <\/span>out<\/span> of <\/span>the<\/span> three players listed (herself, Collier, and Stewart) who could compete with Wilson for the MVP award.<\/span> In her rookie season, she averaged <\/span>19.2 points, 8.4 assists, and 5.7 rebounds<\/span> en route to winning Rookie of the Year. The 23-year-old’s stats are not a surprise since she was seen as a generational talent when <\/span>she<\/span> came out of the draft last year. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is scary to think what she could do after having a break this offseason with the Indiana Fever. If Clark had not had an underwhelming start to the campaign, she could have had more MVP talk surrounding her last year. The guard can’t get complacent because many players in the league will put in extra effort when they play against her. The veterans in the league will want to show she is not a finished product and won’t just have everything go her way in this league.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

A\u2019ja Wilson will be a topic of interest next season. Last year, she became the first player to eclipse the 1,000-point mark, a remarkable feat given the games in the WNBA are shorter. She also averaged 26.9 points, 2.3 assists, and 11.9 rebounds en route to being the unanimous MVP. The 28-year-old’s defensive exploits led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5455,"featured_media":131418,"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":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49709,1608],"tags":[50022,1631,3153,49063,49658],"class_list":["post-131172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wnba","category-basketball","tag-aaliyah-edwards","tag-aja-wilson","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-napheesa-collier"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131172","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=131172"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131419,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131172\/revisions\/131419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}