Over the next week, SB Nation will probably be introducing every of the 12 members of the US Olympic Ladies’s Basketball crew.
Right here’s what you must find out about A’ja Wilson, essentially the most dominant basketball participant within the girls’s subject proper now.
Quick Details
Workforce: Las Vegas Aces (16-8)
Common Season Stats: 27.2 factors (52.7% FG), 11.9 rebounds, 3.8 blocks, 1.8 steals
Place: Middle
Draft Class: 2018, Decide #1
All-Star Picks: 6 (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)
Earlier Olympic Appearances: 2020 Olympic gold medalist (5×5)
Faculty: South Carolina – gained 2017 nationwide championship
It’s laborious to make a case that anybody aside from A’ja Wilson is the most effective participant on this planet
A’ja Wilson is a two-time league MVP, a two-time Defensive Participant of the 12 months, and final yr’s Finals MVP. But — by some means — she’s taking part in her greatest basketball proper now. Wilson is averaging a 27.2 factors per recreation on 52.7% capturing, the best scoring common of any participant within the WNBA. She’s the league’s second-best rebounder, with 11.9 boards a recreation, and she’s the main shotblocker, averaging 2.8 blocks per evening.
Because it at present stands, Wilson appears to be the main candidate for 2 distinct common season honors – MVP and DPOY. Her faculty coach, Daybreak Staley, just lately acknowledged she believed Wilson ought to win each awards, in addition to the Most Improved Participant honor.
That’s not more likely to occur, however Staley’s sentiment displays the truth that Wilson has by some means managed to raise her recreation even additional this season.
A’ja Wilson just lately introduced her new shoe cope with Nike
It most likely got here too late — however in Might, she introduced a highly-anticipated signature shoe cope with Nike, set to formally launch in 2025. The shoe, referred to as the “A’One”, was introduced in Columbia, South Carolina – Wilson’s alma mater and hometown.
She’s the primary Black girl to get her personal signature shoe with Nike since Sheryl Swoopes in 2002, and she or he joins Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and Caitlin Clark as the one lively WNBA gamers with signature offers.
Over the previous few years, public strain had mounted relating to the actual fact different gamers, together with Sabrina Ionescu and Caitlin Clark, obtained shoe offers earlier than her.
“We’ve been engaged on this for a few years now, and I simply needed it to be excellent,” Wilson instructed the Las Vegas Evaluate-Journal’s Callie Lawson-Freeman. “I didn’t need this to be one thing that was similar to a handout.”
She wasn’t at all times good at basketball
In truth, Wilson famously hated basketball — and sweating — as a child. She reluctantly picked up a basketball in eighth grade, and simply barely made the crew, she mentioned in an interview with Marie Claire. She described herself as “terrible” on the sport; a “late, late, late, late, late bloomer.” She recalled by accident dribbling within the mistaken path one recreation.
However, after being on a crew that gained the championship in eighth grade, she fell in love with the game in a single day. By highschool, she was already elite, and led her crew to a state championship her senior season. That’s when she acquired hooked for the long term.
A’ja Wilson is a Gamecock legend
South Carolina has produced a few of the prime gamers in girls’s basketball, and Wilson headlines the pack. She led South Carolina to an NCAA title in 2017, and was subsequently the primary Gamecock participant to ever be named Naismith Faculty Participant of the 12 months. She was additionally a three-time SEC Participant of the 12 months, averaging 17.3 factors (on 54.2% capturing) and eight.7 rebounds in 4 seasons.
In January, South Carolina Athletics put in a statue of Wilson in entrance of Colonial Life Area.
“A’ja was a strong pressure in our program, our campus and our neighborhood by means of all the things that she completed on the court docket and the particular person she was off it,” Daybreak Staley mentioned. “This statue in entrance of this enviornment is an equally highly effective pressure. Each younger particular person, and particularly younger black women, can see what is feasible by means of laborious work, ardour and dedication.”
