A’ja Wilson Makes Her M’VP Push1 of 5

During The Streak: 26.8 points (51% on 2s, 45% on 3s, 87.9% FT), 12.4 rebounds (3.5 OREB), 2.4 assists, 1.5 steals, 2.0 blocks in 33.4 minutes

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The Aces go as A’ja Wilson goes.

It’s a heavy burden. It’s an unfair burden. Ultimately, it’s one that Wilson carries with more grace than most people could dream of.

Even independent of the MVP conversation, it’s important to contextualize what Wilson has been tasked with this season. She’s dealt with a second defender on nearly 17 percent of her touches (16.8), trailing only Brittany Griner (18.2%) and Bri Jones (17%) among 125 players to log 500 touches.

That’s dipped slightly during the win streak (16.2%), but that’s still a top-five mark in the league over the past month and would also rank third if extrapolated across the entire season.

The nature of the help defense Wilson sees—sometimes it’s immediate, sometimes it arrives late—continues to evolve. She’s noted that it can be difficult to prepare for at times; the pregame film can be different than the on-court product.

“It really is hard, because you try to watch film and [realize] they’re not going to guard you that way,” Wilson said. “When you catch the ball, you have to make decisions quickly, but [in a way] that’s best for you and your team.”

Wilson has worked to attack quickly—her average touch time during this streak is slightly lower than her overall mark, for example—but the Aces have continued being intentional about moving Wilson around the board. They’ll start possessions with her in the corner before setting off-ball screens for her.

There have been some fun flashes to the middle of the floor in an effort to make those help decisions more difficult for defenses—and easier for Wilson to diagnose.

Defensively, Wilson has taken more ownership in a couple of ways. For most of the season, the Aces have dialed back their help defense in an effort to keep things 2-on-2 — and ideally keep themselves out of rotation and limit three-point attempts in the process.

Before the streak, that often meant Wilson having to disrupt or save possessions with deflections or recovery blocks or risk giving up more fruitful stuff. Wilson has talked about the need for the defense to showcase layers, and they’ve gotten to those more consistently during the streak.

That brings us to the second thing: the players, led by Wilson, have been doing their own defensive scouting reports. As head coach Becky Hammon recently described, the players think through who and how they want to guard before collaborating with the coaching staff. Hammon will challenge them with questions and potential counters before finalizing plans.

We’ve seen the Aces switch at a higher rate as of late, and part of that is due to them leaning more into cross-matching. You’ll often find Wilson starting games defending a guard now, with NaLyssa Smith and Chelsea Gray taking on frontcourt assignments.

“I love that [my teammates] trust me in those situations, because two years ago I think they would’ve been like ‘girl, you are not guarding a guard’, Wilson said after a Dream matchup where she spent time on fellow Gamecock Te-Hina Paopao and Maya Caldwell in different spots.

With this surge on both ends, it’s become a lot easier to make an MVP case for Wilson. She’s second in scoring (23.4, right behind Napheesa Collier’s 23.5) and rebounds (10.1), leads the league in blocks (2.2) and ranks in the top ten in steals (1.6). The Aces have a plus-9.4 net rating in Wilson’s minutes, but have fallen off a cliff in the minutes she’s been on the bench or unavailable (minus-17.4).

If you’re a Without Player X truther in MVP discussions, Wilson has the strongest case of the primary characters (Collier, Alyssa Thomas).