At center court inside Michelob ULTRA Arena, A’ja Wilson stood surrounded by the people who had watched her become something the WNBA had never seen before.
Her teammates gathered around as Aces owner Mark Davis, head coach Becky Hammon, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young each carried out one of Wilson’s previous four MVP trophies. Then her mother, Eva Wilson, walked onto the court carrying No. 5.
For once, Wilson seemed almost overwhelmed by what was in front of her.
“I got no words,” she said. “This is special.”
It was special because there had never been a moment quite like it in WNBA history. Wilson had just become the league’s first five-time MVP and its first player to win the award three consecutive years, adding 2026 to previous honors in 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025.
She had also entered one of the smallest clubs in basketball history.
Across the NBA and WNBA, only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has won more regular-season MVPs with six. Michael Jordan and Bill Russell each won five.
Now Wilson has five, too.
A place beside the greats
The historical comparisons are no longer theoretical.
Wilson has matched Jordan and Russell in one of the most recognizable measures of sustained individual greatness in basketball, and she is one MVP behind Abdul-Jabbar. The accomplishment is especially striking because Wilson once spoke openly about wanting to build a Bill Russell-like legacy.
Asked Thursday what it felt like to reach that kind of company, Wilson did not run from what the numbers now say.
“This is pretty solidified in a bunch of different ways,” she said.
But she did not sound finished.
“I’m not satisfied, but I am so grateful, and I’m so blessed to be able to do what I do,” Wilson said.
The résumé supporting this latest award is overwhelming.
Wilson led the WNBA in scoring at 26.2 points per game and in blocks at 1.9 per game, doing both for the third consecutive season. She also averaged 9.4 rebounds, recorded 20 double-doubles and scored at least 30 points 13 times, tying her own single-season record from 2025.
She scored in double figures in all 41 games she played and finished with 1,073 points, becoming the only player in WNBA history with multiple 1,000-point seasons. During the year, she climbed from 21st to 11th on the league’s career scoring list.
The MVP vote reflected that dominance. Wilson received 65 first-place votes and 713 total points, while Minnesota’s Olivia Miles finished second with 442.
Those numbers explain why she won.
They do not fully explain why the fifth one made her cry.
Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson celebrates after being named MVP of the 2023 WNBA Finals on Oct. 18, 2023, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Wilson later became the first five-time MVP in WNBA history, adding another major honor to a career that already included Finals MVP recognition. Photo credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
“I cried a little bit harder”
Wilson has collected enough hardware that award ceremonies could have become routine by now. Instead, she said Thursday’s presentation landed differently.
“This one here, I don’t know,” Wilson said. “I cried a little bit harder. This one here is just a little bit different.”
Part of that difference came from seeing the distance between the girl she once was and the woman standing at center court with five MVP trophies around her.
“When you dream as a young girl, you dream so big, and you write your goals out, and you just never imagine that you were able to just check them off,” Wilson said.
Then she reached for something much deeper than basketball.
“15-year-old A’ja wasn’t sitting up here dreaming about being a five-time MVP,” she said. “She wasn’t dreaming about being a three-time champion. She was just dreaming about surviving this world.”
That line puts the trophies in their proper place. They are not simply proof of what she has won. They are markers of how far she has traveled.
“For me to sit up here surrounded by these trophies and to be able to play the game of basketball every single day, it just means a little bit more to me,” Wilson said. “And it’s something that I won’t take for granted.”
The people behind No. 5
The ceremony made that point visually.
Wilson did not stand alone with the trophy. Her teammates were on the court. Her coach was there. Her mother carried the newest award. People who had shared different parts of her journey carried the four that came before it.
Wilson immediately made the moment about them.
“I’m so grateful that I can go to war with each and every last one of you every single day,” she told her teammates. “You guys light up my life and my world.”
She called the MVP a great individual award, then rejected the idea that it belonged only to her.
“I always say I don’t get this without each and every last one of y’all,” Wilson said. “From the text messages to the hugs to the calls, the prayers, just the simple ‘hey,’ just to check in on me, it goes a long, long, long way.”
Her mother followed with the same message.
“She can’t do this alone,” Eva Wilson said. “She never does it alone. And I need everybody in here to understand, it’s all of y’all.”
Wilson has described the people around her as a village that allows her to keep showing up as herself regardless of how loud everything outside becomes.
“I have a village behind me that has poured so much into me that I rarely see the foolishness,” Wilson said. “I have a village that surrounds me with so much love and so much passion and joy that allows me to show up as my truest self every single day.”
Faith at the center
Faith ran through the entire celebration.
Eva Wilson closed her remarks with a line that sounded less like something prepared for an MVP ceremony and more like something the family has carried for years.
“It’s God’s plan in God’s time,” she said. “Always.”
Her daughter spoke just as openly about what she believes has carried her.
“God is so good,” Wilson said. “He has really laid his hands on me.”
Wilson also connected that faith to the ability she displays every night.
“It’s the things that God has given me,” she said. “I’m so blessed that I’m able to show that every night.”
For somebody who has won as much as Wilson has, the remarkable thing is that she does not sound accustomed to any of it.
“I’m so grateful,” she said. “I can’t stop saying that.”
Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson celebrates with the MVP trophy after the Aces defeated the Phoenix Mercury 97-86 on Oct. 10, 2025, at Mortgage Matchup Center to complete a four-game sweep in the WNBA Finals. Wilson later became the first five-time MVP in WNBA history. Photo credit: Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The weight of the crown
Wilson also understands that becoming the standard creates its own burden.
During the press conference, she used the crown sitting nearby as a metaphor for what comes with being the player everyone is chasing.
“This crown gets heavy,” Wilson said. “Wearing it gets heavy. It’s going to tilt. It may slip a little bit. But my biggest thing is making sure that it doesn’t fall.”
That weight comes from expectation, from being the center of every scouting report and from being judged against seasons that would be career years for almost anyone else.
“If you’re going to wear this crown, if you’re going to rock it and wear it as you, you got to have the understanding that it’s going to get heavy,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that it has to drop. Not on my watch, it’s not.”
She also understands that setting a standard means giving somebody else something to chase.
“If you’re able to set a standard, if you’re able to rewrite things and kind of etch yourself into history books, it means a lot,” Wilson said.
That may be one reason the fifth MVP feels larger than the four before it. Wilson is no longer chasing the WNBA’s historical standard.
In this category, she is the standard.
“A different stratosphere”
Hammon did not bother with understatement when it was her turn to speak.
“This is unbelievable,” she told Wilson. “You have to know the grace and humility that you walk your calling out with.”
Hammon has watched Wilson’s dominance from closer than almost anyone. She has also watched the pressure surrounding it, and she believes one part of Wilson’s greatness still does not get discussed enough.
“Your mental toughness I don’t think is talked about enough,” Hammon said. “But you’ve entered a different stratosphere.”
Then came the comparisons.
“You’re Serena, you’re Tiger, you’re Kareem, and the women’s game has never seen anybody like you,” Hammon said. “So, it’s no longer best player on the planet. It is best player in the universe.”
The room responded with applause and cheering, but Hammon’s next thought may have said more about Wilson than the comparisons did.
“She’s greater than any of these awards,” Hammon said. “This is what she does, and she is the best at it. We know there’s so much more to this woman right here, and it is an honor to be your coach.”
Then Hammon thanked Wilson for allowing her to coach her.
“Enjoy this one because this one is pretty untouchable,” Hammon said. “You did that, girl.”
Still chasing something
Five MVPs would be enough for most people to stop for a while and admire the view.
Wilson was thinking about gym time.
The celebration and press conference had interrupted the court work she planned to do afterward. The moment mattered to her. So did what came next.
“God is so good,” Wilson said. “He has really laid his hands on me, but at the same time, he also knows his child.”
She said she would appreciate the award, “shine her up,” and enjoy what it meant. But when the trophy was scheduled to be shown to the fans before the next game, Wilson said she expected somebody else to hold it.
She planned to be warming up with her team.
That same mentality surfaced when she was asked how she keeps finding ways to improve after reaching heights nobody in the WNBA has reached before.
“I love to win,” Wilson said. “I hate losing more than anything, but I love to win. I love the feeling of it. I love the joy that it brings me and my teammates.”
Every day, she said, begins with questions.
“How can I be a great teammate? How can I be a better person and player?”
The answers keep changing because the league keeps changing. New talent arrives. Defenses evolve. Opponents adjust.
Wilson keeps looking for another level.
“It’s always room for improvement,” she said. “And I’m going to make sure that I can check that box every single day.”
Doing it her way
Perhaps the most revealing question Wilson received Thursday was not about Jordan, Russell, Abdul-Jabbar or any of the numbers attached to her fifth MVP.
It was about the girl she used to be.
What would that younger A’ja think if she could see all of this?
Wilson laughed at the idea.
“No way you even did this,” she imagined young A’ja saying. “This is not in the plan, but hey, we’re here.”
But once the laughter passed, Wilson knew what would matter most to that younger version of herself.
“I think she will be so happy at the fact that I did it on my terms,” Wilson said.
She acknowledged moments when she felt broken, moments when people tried to knock her down or discredit her. What mattered, she said, was that she kept getting back up without allowing those moments to redefine her.
“I didn’t let that deter me from who I am and what I am and the things that I do and with the people that I do it with,” Wilson said.
The trophies changed. The expectations changed. The history changed.
Wilson says the person did not.
“No matter if I’m in a jersey or outside of jersey, you’re gonna get A’ja through and through,” she said.
Five trophies, one A’ja
There are now five MVP trophies bearing A’ja Wilson’s name, three consecutive awards and a place beside Jordan and Russell, with only Abdul-Jabbar ahead of her across the NBA and WNBA.
But Thursday’s celebration was not really about counting trophies.
It was about the people who carried them onto the court.
It was about the mother who brought out No. 5 and reminded everyone that her daughter never does this alone. It was about the coach who sees greatness beyond the numbers and the teammates Wilson says light up her world.
It was about a 15-year-old girl who never imagined any of this and the woman who somehow became the standard for an entire league without losing sight of that girl.
Wilson has said the crown gets heavy.
She has also said she will not let it fall.
Five MVPs into one of the greatest careers basketball has ever seen, she is still carrying it.
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Dice City Sports editor Mark Hebert covers the Las Vegas Aces, Vegas Golden Knights, Las Vegas Raiders, Athletics, and UNLV baseball and softball. He has 24 years of journalism experience, is also a senior reporter at Exhibit City News, and previously covered the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers. Follow him on X or connect on LinkedIn.
