Victory! Gamecock great A’ja Wilson wins first WNBA Finals MVP, second league title
Gamecock great A’ja Wilson on Wednesday added a new accolade to her decorated career: WNBA Finals most valuable player.
Wilson’s Las Vegas Aces became the first team since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001 and 2002 to win back-to-back league championships, defeating the New York Liberty 70-69 and winning the series 3-1. Former Gamecock Alaina Coates plays center for the Aces as well.
While Wilson has two league MVP awards to her name, this is her first Finals MVP trophy.
Wilson had 24 points (on 52.4% shooting) and 16 rebounds in the victory, with South Carolina coach Dawn Staley sitting courtside for the whole thing.
“I can’t express how proud I am of my teammates,” Wilson told ESPN in an on-air interview after the win. “They picked me up when I was down. We cried together, we prayed together and now we’re popping champagne together!”
Wilson had 26 points (on 62.5% shooting) and 15 rebounds in Las Vegas’ dominant Game 2 of the best-of-five series. Through the first two rounds of the postseason against the Chicago Sky and Dallas Wings, she averaged 25.8 points on 59.5% shooting.
A’ja Wilson in 2023
Wilson won her second consecutive Defensive Player of the Year Award this season, becoming the eighth player to win the distinction multiple times. She also played on her fifth All-Star team as the leading vote-getter. Wilson finished third in the league’s MVP voting (behind the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart and Connecticut Sun’s Alyssa Thomas), to the dismay of many fans and influential figures in the women’s basketball world.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley called Wilson’s snub “awful,” and shared her thoughts on the anonymous media member who voted Wilson fourth in their ballot.
“The person that voted for the fourth-place vote, it puts you in a position to think there was some type of collusion, because you give her the fourth-place vote and it takes points away from her in other areas,” Staley said. “When you have a system like that, it can’t be trusted for someone to have a vote to do that. They should not be able to vote again.”
The Las Vegas home crowd showered Wilson with “MVP” chants during Game 2 of the Finals, to which she responded afterward with “You’ve got to respect it.” Her current head coach Becky Hammon piggybacked with a comment that’s since gone viral: “Third in MVP voting?... That’s a joke.”
This story was originally published October 18, 2023 at 10:25 PM.
