Over the next week, SB Nation will probably be introducing every of the 12 members of the US Olympic Ladies’s Basketball crew.
Right here’s what it’s worthwhile to find out about A’ja Wilson, probably 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: Middle
Draft Class: 2018, Choose #1
All-Star Choices: 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 arduous to make a case that anybody apart from A’ja Wilson is the most effective participant on the earth
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 — in some way — she’s taking part in her greatest 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 faculty coach, Daybreak Staley, just 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 in some way managed to raise her sport even additional this season.
A’ja Wilson just lately introduced her new shoe cope with Nike
It in all probability got here too late — however in Might, 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 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 very fact different gamers, together with Sabrina Ionescu and Caitlin Clark, obtained shoe offers earlier than her.
“We’ve been engaged on this for a few years now, and I simply wished it to be excellent,” Wilson advised the Las Vegas Overview-Journal’s Callie Lawson-Freeman. “I didn’t need this to be one thing that was similar to a handout.”
She wasn’t at all times good at basketball
The truth is, 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 mentioned 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 improper path 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 obtained hooked for the long term.
A’ja Wilson is a Gamecock legend
South Carolina has produced among the high 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 Enviornment.
“A’ja was a robust drive in our program, our campus and our group by all the things that she completed on the courtroom and the individual she was off it,” Daybreak Staley mentioned. “This statue in entrance of this area is an equally highly effective drive. Each younger individual, and particularly younger black ladies, can see what is feasible by arduous work, ardour and dedication.”
