‘She’s phenomenal’: Wilson adds another accolade as WNBA Finals MVP

NEW YORK — A’ja Wilson wanted some advice as she pursued her second consecutive championship. So who better to turn to than Sheryl Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper-Dyke?

Two of the league’s greatest players, Swoopes and Cooper-Dyke led the Houston Comets to four consecutive championships from 1997 to 2000. Their advice to Wilson was simple.

“Just go do it, be better than you were last game,” Wilson said. “And I think that was the biggest thing I could do.”

Wilson was named WNBA Finals MVP after leading her short-handed Aces to a gutsy 70-69 Game 4 win against the New York Liberty on Wednesday to claim the league’s first repeat title in 21 years.

The Aces now officially belong in a category with the 2001-02 Los Angeles Sparks and the legendary Comets of Swoopes and Cooper-Dyke as the WNBA’s only repeat champions.

It’s another massive achievement for Wilson, who’s no stranger to accolades. She’s a two-time champion. A two-time league MVP. A two-time Defensive Player of the Year. A four-time All-WNBA selection.

All in just six seasons in the WNBA and at the age of 27.

And now, she’s captured a WNBA Finals MVP after averaging 21.3 points and 12.5 rebounds against the Liberty to lead her team to the championship. Her 24-point, 16-rebound performance in Game 4 left everything she had on the court.

Yet once again — as they have all season — the Aces’ players and coaches extolled Wilson’s values as a leader and a person before considering her skills on the basketball court.

“She still showed up,” veteran wing Alysha Clark said. “She was vulnerable with us. She talked with us. She cried with us, and then it was like, ‘Listen, I’m putting my armor back on and we’re going to work,’ When you have your best player, your franchise player who can do that, who can show up and be like that. It makes everybody want to rally around her even more.

“It just speaks to the testament to who she is, the woman that her parents have raised. She’s phenomenal.”

Aces owner offers praise

Wearing his trademark white suit with an Aces T-shirt underneath, owner Mark Davis watched with a smile as his team celebrated its second consecutive championship.

“It’s really hard to win a championship,” he said. “It’s really hard to repeat.”

Davis is in his third season as owner of the Aces. He’s already got two championships to show for it, and the team’s recent success is regularly attributed to his investment. The Aces opened a state-of-the-art training facility ahead of this season, and he splashed cash to bring in Becky Hammon, whom he called the “greatest coach in the world.”

Now he gets to sit back and reap the rewards of his investments for a second consecutive year. However, Davis credited Hammon, general manager Natalie Williams and president Nikki Fargas for leading the franchise back to a championship, and also praised his players for having the grit, determination and fight to overcome anything put in their path.

“This team went through a lot of adversity this season, all the way up until the last game,” he said. “They found ways to win, and they’re just a phenomenal group of women.”

Contact reporter Andy Yamashita at ayamashita@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ANYamashita on X.