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 you’ll want to find out about A’ja Wilson, probably the most dominant basketball participant within the girls’s area proper now.
Quick Info
Workforce: 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, Decide #1
All-Star Picks: 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 laborious to make a case that anybody aside from A’ja Wilson is the perfect participant on this 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 — in some way — she’s taking part in her greatest basketball proper now. Wilson is averaging a 27.2 factors per recreation on 52.7% capturing, 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 evening.
Because it at present stands, Wilson appears to be the main candidate for 2 distinct common season honors – MVP and DPOY. Her faculty coach, Daybreak Staley, not too long ago said 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 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, 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 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 relating to the very 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 wished it to be excellent,” Wilson instructed 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 all the time 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 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 chance dribbling within the flawed 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 acquired hooked for the long term.
A’ja Wilson is a Gamecock legend
South Carolina has produced a few of 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% capturing) 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 robust pressure in our program, our campus and our group by way of every part that she achieved 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 pressure. Each younger individual, and particularly younger black ladies, can see what is feasible by way of laborious work, ardour and dedication.”
