WNBA MVP Wilson is AP Female Athlete of the Year

A'ja Wilson stood atop the WNBA again in 2025, winning an unprecedented fourth MVP as her Las Vegas Aces earned a third championship in four seasons.

For that, she earned The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year award on Wednesday for the first time in her career. It's the second consecutive year a basketball player won the award after Caitlin Clark was honored in 2024.

"It's an honor when you think about the group of women who have won before," Wilson said in a phone interview. "Just to have my name be a part of it, I'm blessed."

Wilson is only the fifth basketball player to be honored as the Female Athlete of the Year since it was first presented in 1931, joining Sheryl Swoopes (1993), Rebecca Lobo (1995), Candace Parker (2008, 2021) and Clark.

A group of 47 sports journalists from the AP and its members voted. Wilson received 17 votes, tennis star Aryna Sabalenka was second with nine and fellow WNBA star Paige Bueckers was third with five.

"The things she's done on the court have never been done. To me, she's in a category all her own," Aces coach Becky Hammon said of Wilson. "People always ask who's on your Mount Rushmore? I'm saying she's on Everest — there's nobody up there with her."

Hammon has been impressed with everything about Wilson in her four years coaching in Las Vegas.

"Her relatability, her being down to earth makes her a great superstar," Hammon said. "Her skill set is unmatched, but she's also the easiest player to coach. To have that mixture of humility, grace and skill, there's a reason why she's doing things that have never been done."

This season was different for Wilson and the Aces, who had cruised to their previous two titles as a heavy favorite. This year, with a month to go, the Aces were sitting at .500 and were in danger of missing the playoffs after coming off a record 53-point loss against Minnesota.

Wilson rallied her team to wins in the final 16 regular-season games to secure the No 2 seed, and Las Vegas went on to win the championship.

"This season I found myself through the adversity and mud we went through," she said.

Despite her numbers being on par with her unanimous MVP season the year before, Wilson heard the chatter that she wasn't playing as well and that she wasn't the front-runner to repeat as the league's top player.

The 29-year-old used that as fuel on the court. She led the league with 23.4 points and 2.3 blocks per game.

"The way they talk about us, the way they talk about me, I'm ready for that, I'm ready for the noise," Wilson said. "It's always going to be something. If we sit here and try to please everybody, we're going to go insane. I'm just going to continue to prove why I'm one of the greatest, and why my team is part of a dynamic dynasty."

Wilson raised her game even further in the playoffs, helping the Aces survive decisive winner-take-all games in the quarterfinals and semifinals. She then helped Las Vegas sweep Phoenix in the WNBA Finals, hitting the winning shot in Game 3.

"It's fair to say the expectations for her are so sky high now, she'll be compared, to some degree, to the unanimous MVP she was the year before," former winner and now ESPN analyst Lobo said. "Even though she wasn't unanimous MVP this year, the journey she had this season was different, and she was playing the best basketball of her career in the playoffs. Every year, you wonder how she'll get better, and she always does."

Wilson became the first player in either the WNBA or NBA to win the MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Finals MVP and lead the league in scoring in the same season.

Wilson broke a tie with Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Lauren Jackson, who all won the WNBA MVP three times. She plans to have another relaxing offseason as she won't play overseas or in Unrivaled, the domestic 3-on-3 league.

Wilson became a free agent at the end of the season and could be in for a significant raise, as the league and players union negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, but she is widely expected to return to the Aces.

On Tuesday, Shohei Ohtani was named the men's winner for the fourth time.

Agencies via Xinhua