Over the next week, SB Nation will likely be introducing every of the 12 members of the US Olympic Girls’s Basketball crew.
Right here’s what it’s essential to learn about A’ja Wilson, essentially the most dominant basketball participant within the girls’s area proper now.
Quick Details
Group: 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 Alternatives: 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 exhausting to make a case that anybody apart from A’ja Wilson is the perfect participant on the planet
A’ja Wilson is a two-time league MVP, a two-time Defensive Participant of the 12 months, and final 12 months’s Finals MVP. But — someway — she’s taking part in her finest basketball proper now. Wilson is averaging a 27.2 factors per recreation 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 recreation, and she’s the main shotblocker, averaging 2.8 blocks per night time.
Because it at present stands, Wilson appears to be the main candidate for 2 distinct common season honors – MVP and DPOY. Her school coach, Daybreak Staley, not too long ago 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 someway managed to raise her recreation even additional this season.
A’ja Wilson not too long ago introduced her new shoe take care of Nike
It most likely got here too late — however in Could, she introduced a highly-anticipated signature shoe take care of 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 stress had mounted concerning 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 advised the Las Vegas Evaluation-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 mistaken course 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 received hooked for the long term.
A’ja Wilson is a Gamecock legend
South Carolina has produced among 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% 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 power in our program, our campus and our group by way of every part that she completed 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 power. Each younger individual, and particularly younger black women, can see what is feasible by way of exhausting work, ardour and dedication.”
