Over the next week, SB Nation will probably be introducing every of the 12 members of the US Olympic Girls’s Basketball crew.
Right here’s what you’ll want to find out about A’ja Wilson, essentially the most dominant basketball participant within the ladies’s area proper now.
Quick Information
Staff: Las Vegas Aces (16-8)
Common Season Stats: 27.2 factors (52.7% FG), 11.9 rebounds, 3.8 blocks, 1.8 steals
Place: Heart
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)
School: South Carolina – gained 2017 nationwide championship
It’s onerous 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 Yr, and final 12 months’s Finals MVP. But — by some means — she’s enjoying her finest basketball proper now. Wilson is averaging a 27.2 factors per sport on 52.7% taking pictures, the very best scoring common of any participant within the WNBA. She’s the league’s second-best rebounder, with 11.9 boards a sport, and she’s the main shotblocker, averaging 2.8 blocks per night time.
Because it presently stands, Wilson appears to be the main candidate for 2 distinct common season honors – MVP and DPOY. Her school coach, Daybreak Staley, lately acknowledged she believed Wilson ought to win each awards, in addition to the Most Improved Participant honor.
That’s not prone to occur, however Staley’s sentiment displays the truth that Wilson has by some means managed to raise her sport even additional this season.
A’ja Wilson lately introduced her new shoe cope with Nike
It most likely got here too late — however in Could, she introduced a highly-anticipated signature shoe cope with Nike, set to formally launch in 2025. The shoe, known as the “A’One”, was introduced in Columbia, South Carolina – Wilson’s alma mater and hometown.
She’s the primary Black lady to get her personal signature shoe with Nike since Sheryl Swoopes in 2002, and he or she joins Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and Caitlin Clark as the one lively WNBA gamers with signature offers.
Over the previous few years, public stress had mounted relating to the actual fact different gamers, together with Sabrina Ionescu and Caitlin Clark, acquired shoe offers earlier than her.
“We’ve been engaged on this for a few years now, and I simply needed it to be good,” Wilson instructed the Las Vegas Overview-Journal’s Callie Lawson-Freeman. “I didn’t need this to be one thing that was identical to a handout.”
She wasn’t at all times good at basketball
In reality, 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 stated 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 unsuitable route one sport.
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 received hooked for the long term.
A’ja Wilson is a Gamecock legend
South Carolina has produced among the prime gamers in ladies’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 School Participant of the Yr. She was additionally a three-time SEC Participant of the Yr, averaging 17.3 factors (on 54.2% taking pictures) 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 via all the things that she achieved on the court docket and the individual she was off it,” Daybreak Staley stated. “This statue in entrance of this enviornment is an equally highly effective pressure. Each younger individual, and particularly younger black women, can see what is feasible via onerous work, ardour and dedication.”
