A’ja Wilson has won the WNBA’s Most Valuable Player award for a record fifth time, becoming the first player in league history to win it three years in a row. The Las Vegas Aces center received 65 of 74 first-place votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters, finishing with 713 points.
Wilson averaged 26.2 points per game to lead the league in scoring for a third straight year, along with 9.4 rebounds, a career-best 3.2 assists and 1.9 blocks — leading the league in blocks for the fifth time in six seasons. She became the first WNBA player to average at least 25 points while shooting 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from three-point range, and her scoring average ranks second in league history only to her own mark from two years ago. Minnesota rookie Olivia Miles finished second in voting with 442 points, followed by Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlin Clark.
No other WNBA player has won more than three MVPs. Across American team sports, five MVPs places Wilson in rare company — alongside names like Michael Jordan and Bill Russell in the NBA, while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s six remains the basketball standard. Wilson learned of the award when the league’s commissioner handed her a phone carrying a congratulatory message from a former vice president.
Wilson said this one moved her more than the others, reflecting that as a teenager she was dreaming about surviving the world rather than collecting trophies. Her Aces, seeded third after a 31-13 season, continue their semifinal series this weekend — with Wilson choosing to skip a pregame ceremony in her honor to keep the focus on extending the season.
A standard that keeps resetting
Winning one Most Valuable Player award requires a season that stands above the league. Winning three in succession requires something rarer, which is sustaining that standard while every opponent builds its game plan around stopping you. Defenses load up, double-team and try to force the ball elsewhere. Teammates adjust. The player at the center must score efficiently, rebound in traffic, protect the rim and still create for others when the defense commits. Doing that across multiple seasons, as the voting described here reflects, is a test of durability as much as talent.
Wilson’s season, as outlined in the award announcement, combined volume with efficiency. Leading the league in scoring while also ranking among its best rebounders and shot-blockers describes a two-way workload that few players at any position carry simultaneously. The career-best assist mark noted by the league points to the other side of that burden: as defenses send extra attention, the correct play is often a pass, and making it quickly keeps an offense functional rather than heroic.
Where five MVPs sits historically
Five MVP awards place a player in a very small room in professional basketball. The comparisons raised at the time of the announcement, to figures such as Michael Jordan and Bill Russell, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s six still ahead, are not casual praise. They reflect how seldom voters return to the same name year after year. Balloting tends to reward novelty, team success and narrative freshness. Overcoming that pull three years running suggests voters concluded that the gap between Wilson and the field remained the most important fact of each season.
The composition of this year’s vote is part of that story. A clear first-place majority, with a highly regarded rookie and established guards behind her, shows both generational transition and continuity at the top. New stars arrive, scoring rises across the league and styles evolve, yet the award keeps settling in the same place. That tension, between a league changing quickly and a standard that has not moved, is what makes a fifth MVP feel different from the first.
Playoffs over pageantry
The decision to skip a pregame ceremony in her honor, as her team continues a semifinal series, fits the pattern voters have rewarded. Postseason basketball compresses legacy quickly. A brilliant regular season secures awards. A deep playoff run secures how those awards are remembered. For a third-seeded team still playing for a place in the Finals, keeping preparation undisturbed is a competitive choice as much as a modest one.
It also reflects the calendar Wilson now inhabits. Each additional honor raises the audience for the next game rather than closing the conversation. Opponents get another chance to test the league’s most decorated current player when it matters most. That is the stage on which three-peats are either confirmed as dominance or revised as prologue, and it is the stage Wilson, by all accounts in this announcement, preferred to keep the focus.
Related reading: Micah Parsons Targets a Week 6 Return Against His Old Team at Lambeau · Liberty Host Dream at Barclays Center as WNBA Semifinals Tighten · Aces Face Elimination at Home Against Golden State in Wilson's MVP Week
