LAS VEGAS — With the Aces underachieving to start the season, it looked as though Lynx star Napheesa Collier would run away with the WNBA MVP race. Lately, however, Aces standout A’ja Wilson has been making a push for her fourth such honor.
Wilson didn’t disappoint in an 80-66 victory Sunday against the Sky, becoming the player with the most 30-point games in a season and extending the Aces’ winning streak to 14 games.
Her coach, Becky Hammon, wore a pink wig to resemble her star and to ‘‘remind everyone who the best player in the world is.’’
Together, Wilson and Hammon have pulled the Aces back on track, a process that isn’t always smooth.
In 2022, the season the Aces won their first WNBA championship, they hit a skid before the All-Star break. Hammon roasted her players, then told them every victory would earn a foam ‘‘brick,’’ stacked to build a house.
At first, players rolled their eyes. But as the bricks piled up, the Aces craved the chance to add another. It became part of their identity.
That idea of building piece-by-piece shows up throughout Wilson’s book, ‘‘Dear Black Girls.’’
As a child in South Carolina, Wilson built Lego houses with her grandmother. Before they could start, they had to sort the Legos by color.
The rule annoyed Wilson at the time. Now, however, she sees it as a lesson: Be in the moment. Give in to the process.
Her grandmother was her best friend. When she died during Wilson’s sophomore year of college at South Carolina, Wilson wrote coach Dawn Staley a letter saying she was quitting basketball. Staley’s empathy persuaded her to rip it up.
But the pain remained, unprocessed, until early in her pro career. While driving to an outlet mall, Wilson had a panic attack in the car. At first she thought it was about basketball, then realized it was about her grandmother.
She never had slowed down enough to face her grief.
‘‘I started letting my therapist in more,’’ Wilson wrote in her book. ‘‘I started being more honest with my parents. I started being more real with myself.’’
‘‘Dear Black Girls’’ is full of such turns — how loss, struggle and awkward moments shaped Wilson and how they invite others to see themselves with more grace.
No chapter captures it better than the one about draft night. Wilson, the presumptive No. 1 pick, felt confident in her outfit until, three minutes before she had to leave, she realized she couldn’t sit down without choking. The measurements only had been taken while she was standing up.
For the rest of the night, Wilson contorted into odd positions just to breathe. By the time her name was called, she wanted to make a public-service announcement: Always measure your outfit while sitting down.
That was the comic-relief message, but there was a deeper one. too: We don’t know what we don’t know.
Wilson rediscovered that this season. The Aces, having lost key pieces from their championship roster, stumbled out of the gate.
‘‘In the beginning of the year, I’m like, ‘I’m doing the same thing I did last year, [so] why isn’t it working? What’s the problem?’ ’’ she told the Sun-Times on Sunday. ‘‘My leadership was the problem.’’
Wilson’s evolution wasn’t about growing her game anymore; it was about connecting with her teammates.
It was another lesson about not knowing what she didn’t know. Another foam brick, another Lego to stack.
She thought about her grandmother often during the Aces’ early struggles this season. One night, she even butt-dialed her, saw the name on her phone and felt at ease. Her grandmother was reminding her she wasn’t really gone.
‘‘She’s within me now,’’ Wilson said.
She didn’t have to say it. You could see it in her eyes as she spoke.
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