Inside the abrupt ending to A'ja Wilson's historic MVP season

• 

  Katie BarnesOct 10, 2026, 08:11 AM ET

  Close

  Katie Barnes is a writer/reporter for ESPN.com. Follow them on Twitter at Katie_Barnes3.

WITH THE HOOD on her black Aces sweatshirt pulled up, A'ja Wilson walked to the dais 40 minutes after the buzzer sounded on the Aces' season. Her black smiley-face slippers clopped against the stairs. She sat down and drummed her fingers on the table as she fielded questions about why the Aces came up short and what the team's future holds.

She looked down at her lap when Chelsea Gray praised her season.

"MVP man, that girl can ball. She can hoop," Gray said, earning a sadness-tinged smile and chuckle from Wilson.

It wasn't the ending Wilson envisioned. She shot just 6-for-19 from the floor on Friday night in Las Vegas, missed three free throws in the fourth quarter, and got her pocket picked with 1:54 to go. The turnover allowed the Valkyries to tie the score with a bucket on the other end.

The defending champions never led again.

On the next possession, Wilson missed a jumper in the lane and the Valkyries scored again to go up by two. A Jackie Young bucket forced overtime, but the Aces were outscored 16-6 and were swept out of the WNBA semifinals with an 87-77 loss.

"I want to do everything I can for my team, and I felt like I did not do that at some points," Wilson said at the dais. "So I think that is going to carry over more so than [missing] the free throw or the missed shots."

Wilson's record-breaking fifth MVP season concluded far sooner than she imagined, on a night when she scored 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. All season long, she showcased her evolving game. She's a better shooter, a better facilitator, a better defender. But even her greatness has limits. Injuries to teammates, a suffocating Valkyries defense and a pointing fan in Indiana proved too much for even the greatest to overcome.

A DAY BEFORE the official demise, Wilson wore a double-breasted Aces red Dolce & Gabbana suit and was flanked by her five MVP trophies. She peered through her black-rimmed glasses as she addressed reporters after receiving her record fifth WNBA MVP trophy and unprecedented third in a row.

"It truly means a lot, and so I think that's why I cried a little bit harder on this one," Wilson said on Thursday. "Because 15-year-old A'ja wasn't sitting up here dreaming about being a five-time MVP. She wasn't dreaming about being a three-time champion. She was dreaming about surviving this world. For me to sit up here surrounded by these trophies and to be able to play the game of basketball every single day just means a little bit more to me."

Surprised by her teammates and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert at practice, Wilson doubled over in tears. Her mother, Eva Rakes Wilson, carried in the newest award for her daughter's stuffed trophy case. Engelbert presented a cream-colored old-fashioned phone to Wilson preloaded with congratulatory messages. She heard from her family, former coaches, each of her teammates, her partner Bam Adebayo, and Kamala Harris, the former vice president and Wilson's Alpha Kappa Alpha soror.

"Keep being the example. Keep being you," Dawn Staley told Wilson in her message.

"Little girls around the world, they see you," Lisa Leslie said.

"You are the blueprint of what an elite athlete should strive to be," Sylvia Fowles told her.

"This game needed you. Vegas needed you. We all needed you," Chelsea Gray said.

"Quite frankly, the planet hasn't seen anything like you," Becky Hammon said.

Wilson had come a long way from the young girl in Columbia, South Carolina, who spent her time handing out water bottles to her teammates because she wasn't good enough to get on the floor.

Now she's arguably the best women's basketball player in history.

Wilson dominated the MVP conversation practically from the jump. She dropped 45 points against Connecticut on May 15 and swept the WNBA's Western Conference player of the month awards all season.

Other players had their moments of MVP candidacy -- Olivia Miles, Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell -- but their theoretical viability faded as Wilson's inevitability emerged. Again.

"They want to pick someone else, but she won't let them," Adebayo said in an August phone interview. "If you look at the numbers, there's no way you can't. Like how do you give it to someone else?"

Wilson finished the regular season as the league's scoring champion, averaging 26.2 points per game and topping 1,000 points for the second time in her career. She's expanded her playmaking ability and averaged a career-high 3.2 assists per game. Wilson also stepped out on the perimeter and shot a career-best 40.4% from beyond the arc. Her 9.4 win shares led the league, 1.9 higher than second place. Her 32.4 efficiency rating (PER) was similarly dominant with the league's second highest at 24.1. Wilson has posted four of the WNBA's top seven single-season efficiency ratings from 2023-2026, and is the all-time career PER leader.

When Wilson was awarded her first MVP in 2020, the Aces were swept in the WNBA Finals by Seattle. The young superstar was among the best in the league. It was Hammon's arrival that helped make her the best.

HAMMON WATCHED AS WILSON drilled shots from around the perimeter, far beyond what Hammon thought her natural range was. Hammon had just taken the job as the Aces head coach, and Wilson had flown to San Antonio to meet with her. They'd gone out to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse the night before so Hammon could get to know her new star. She had a request.

"I asked her to allow me to coach her," Hammon recalled in August. "And coach her hard in front of her teammates, which she agreed to. She's a real one."

The next day, Hammon put Wilson through a workout to get a close look at the talent she wanted to push. She'd seen Wilson's low-post dominance on film, but this version of Wilson was different. She showed Hammon that she was capable of more than she'd put on tape to that point. When Hammon asked why Wilson wasn't more active on the perimeter, Wilson said it wasn't part of the previous system.

"I was like, 'Well, it's about to be part of the system,'" Hammon said.

Wilson consistently showed off that evolution this season. Against the Valkyries on June 21, Golden State guard Tiffany Hayes drove down the lane. Wilson turned her body toward Hayes and bent her knees to prepare to explode upward. As Hayes floated the ball toward the rim, Wilson leapt with her left arm fully outstretched, twisting her body to avoid Hayes as she drove by and swatted the ball.

Jewell Loyd grabbed the deflection and passed the ball back to Wilson, who threw it ahead to Young before sprinting up the court. Young flicked the ball back to a trailing Wilson. The 6-foot-4 center caught the pass in stride, dribbled by her defender, and finished the layup with her left hand.

Just another highlight for the five-time MVP and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.

"She's just extended her game," Hammon said in July. "She's not just a low-block elbow type of player, which she very much was when I first got here. Now, we play her like a big guard a lot of times, and she's just a nightmare matchup for people. I don't know if anybody's found the remedy for her."

Wilson put in the work during her offseason. Unlike many WNBA stars, Wilson doesn't play competitively in the months between WNBA seasons. Fans and competitors alike won't see her in Unrivaled or dominating overseas in the EuroLeague. After the WNBA season ends, she takes a few months off to recharge. And then, when she hears the call of the ball bouncing on the hardwood, Wilson goes to work.

"When it comes to basketball, the way that I view it, like it's just a matter of sharpening tools," Wilson said in July. "You have those tools already in your toolbox. It's just a matter of how you use them and if you can sharpen them."

Wilson has focused during the past three offseasons on navigating the tight windows presented to her on the court. The pirouettes through double-teams, slipping through traffic on drives to the basket, a jab step to create space, a reverse pivot to a face-up jumper, her ability to maneuver within and manipulate cramped spaces elevated her game.

"You'll see her at the elbow now, between the legs, into a combo move," Gray said in August. "You think you got her figured out and the next year she comes with something better."

"I don't want to call her a maniac, but [she's got] the mindset of somebody that is obsessed to be that great and just dominant from all levels," Adebayo said.

THE FIRST REAL SIGN of trouble for Wilson emerged on Aug. 31 when USA Basketball announced she wouldn't play in the FIBA Women's World Cup due to a nagging back injury. She'd missed four games in late June and early July, including the Commissioner's Cup championship against New York, due to an ankle injury, but she'd played at a high level through July and August. Not going to Berlin was the first indication that something was amiss with her body.

The break, however, was good physically and mentally for Wilson. She practiced with her teammates while Young and Gray won a gold medal overseas. As she worked to get healthy, Wilson moved lighter in the gym and the locker room, giving her teammates more glimpses of her humor and goofiness.

"She was just more opened up," Aces forward Cheyenne Parker-Tyus said at shootaround before Game 2 against the Fever. "Throughout the season, she's reserved, you know, because it takes a lot. I think that has to do with just everybody always constantly pulling at her, and the world is literally on her shoulders sometimes. But she was definitely more giddy and more just in a good place. You could tell that she was happy to be home. Sometimes, when you're dealing with injuries and pains, it can affect your mental."

Off the court, Wilson relaxed with her dogs, watched movies with her parents, swam, and enjoyed massages. "She got a lot of self-care and relaxation," Rakes Wilson said. "And it shows. She was ready to go."

In the four games following the FIBA break that closed the regular season, Wilson looked rejuvenated, averaging 27.8 points, 8.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.3 blocks during the stretch. And in Game 1 against the Fever, Wilson was transcendent: 38 points, 16 rebounds, 4 blocks and 2 steals.

"She's ready to go," Hammon said of Wilson after the Aces' Game 1 102-85 victory. "She understands the stakes always. She was a clinic tonight. There was nothing she didn't do tonight."

Wilson often says, "The crown is heavy." Sometimes it wobbles.

CHAOS ERUPTED SUDDENLY in Game 2 on Sept. 29 in Indiana. Wilson and Fever guard Sophie Cunningham collided in the lane with 4:10 to go in the fourth quarter. Cunningham ended up on the hardwood, and Wilson stumbled forward to regain her balance. Referees called a blocking foul on Cunningham.

An expressionless Wilson walked off the collision. As she approached the basket, she locked eyes with a Fever fan standing and pointing at her. According to another fan in the section, the pointing fan shouted, "That's on you!" referring to the foul just called on Cunningham.

Wilson accelerated toward the fan, crossed the white painted boundary of the baseline and bent toward him. She yelled, "You don't point at me!" Her teammates and coaches rushed to pull her away. Wilson was assessed a technical foul for unsportsmanlike conduct.

After the game, Wilson said she apologized to her teammates for the technical but defended her actions. "I try to play my game ... but if I am just walking, just got the foul, I'm chilling and I see a man come at me, taking steps toward me and pointing at me, I don't give a damn what you said," she said. "I don't give a damn how you said it, the tone. That is unacceptable. You don't step toward me. You never should sit and point at me. That there is unacceptable."

For the entirety of Wilson's athletic career, she's been known for her charisma, humility and gratitude. The outburst in Gainbridge was discombobulating largely because Wilson isn't known for fiery displays. She celebrates -- who doesn't love a good A'ja stomp after an and-1? -- makes faces and complains to refs as much as the next player. What happened in Indianapolis was something different.

It was an out-of-character moment toward the end of an out-of-character performance for Wilson. In the Aces' 99-89 Game 2 loss, she had 22 points and 9 rebounds, but it was far from the dominance she displayed in Game 1. And the moment between her and the fan she confronted became the first significant controversy of her career.

She was criticized by some on social media for overreacting. Cunningham, who declined an interview request through her agent for this story, told Wilson to "grow up" on her podcast.

"I could care less about what anyone has to say about me or anything they want to write about me or comment," Wilson said. "No one's ever lived this life that I'm living, so they can never have any input that would make my mind go into another space. I really don't care about it."

Others -- teammates and family -- empathized with her reaction during an intense game in a hostile road arena.

"That's not A'ja," Rakes Wilson said. "She's managed in the whole nine years of her career not to do what she did, so it had to be something. And I'll be honest with you, I don't care what he said. That's not important to me. What's important to me was she felt unsafe, she felt threatened, and she felt disrespected."

Wilson received no additional punishment for her actions, neither did the Aces players who left the bench to pull her back. The Aces won Game 3 at home and the world kept spinning. But the Aces and Wilson didn't win again.

IN GAME 1 against the Valkyries, the Aces managed just 60 points, their lowest total of the season. Jewell Loyd hurt her leg in the third quarter and didn't return. Game 2 was closer even without Loyd, but a furious rally came up short. And suddenly the reigning champions were facing elimination in Game 3.

Wilson arrived at her home arena on Friday in a white T-shirt and shorts. She sidestepped the pomp and circumstance that's come to characterize WNBA arrivals. No glitzy outfit. No pregame autographs. No trophies. Her parents lifted Wilson's MVP trophy for the crowd in a pre-game ceremony, while Wilson warmed up with her teammates.

"The individual award is going to be what it's going to be," Wilson said. "I love it. I cherish it. I don't take it for granted. But the main goal is always going to be a championship."

For a half, the Aces looked like they could keep their goal intact. But they were outscored 17-7 in the third quarter and then lost a late lead in the fourth. Shots clanged off the rim. Turnovers mounted. The Aces were done.

With her parents and Adebayo waiting, Wilson sat at the podium and insisted they were only done for now.

"It's just not our time and I'm OK with that," she said. "I'm at peace with the great things we did do. I can't harp on this game too much. I'm just very happy that our team was locked in and we showed up for one another. Obviously the outcome's not what we wanted, but we're still champions at heart. We're gonna have another opportunity. I guarantee you that."