The first MVP three-peat in WNBA history belongs to A’ja Wilson.
The Las Vegas Aces star won the award for the fifth time overall, receiving 65 of 74 votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters.
She led the league in scoring (26.2 points per game) and blocks (9.4 per game) this season as she powered her team to the playoffs in the eighth-straight postseason appearance of her career
Wilson — who turned 30 this year — won her first MVP in 2020, then claimed the award again in 2022, 2024 and 2025.
The Columbia, South Carolina, native already had the record for most MVP’s in league history with four. Only one other WNBA player had won the award in back-to-back seasons: Cynthia Cooper (1997, 1998). Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Lauren
Jackson all won MVP three time, but none won in three straight seasons.
Wilson's list of elite company expands beyond the WNBA. Only three NBA players have won three-straight league MVPs: Larry Bird (1984–1986, Boston Celtics), Bill Russell (1961–1963, Boston Celtics) and Wilt Chamberlain (1966–1968, Philadelphia 76ers).
Her latest trophy comes after a back issue caused her to miss national duties for Team USA in the FIBA World Cup in September. Aces coach Becky Hammon described it as a problem that lingered even after the FIBA break and started "way before" it. Wilson also dealt with a leg injury, missing three regular-season games total.
Despite those ailments, Wilson came close to the scoring, rebounding and blocking numbers she put up in the 2024 campaign, when she became the first player in WNBA history to score 1,000 points in a season.
The Aces were eliminated in the playoffs by the New York Liberty that season, leading Hammon to lament that the team couldn’t make her stellar campaign worth something.
This year, Wilson became the only player in WNBA history to score 1,000 points in a season twice, and the Aces are in pursuit of a fourth WNBA title in five years, with Game 3 of the team's best-of-five semifinals series against the Golden State Valkyries set to tipoff on Friday.
The other accolades on Wilson's decorated professional resume include:
- 2018 No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick
- First player in WNBA history to win a championship, Finals MVP, league MVP, and DPOY in the same season (2025)
- Two-time Olympic gold medalist (2020, 2024)
- FIBA Women's Olympics MVP (2024)
- WNBA single-season rebound record (2024)
- Two-time WNBA Finals MVP (2023, 2025)
- Three-time WNBA Defensive Player of the Year (2022, 2023, 2025)
- Eight-time WNBA All-Star (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026)
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Las Vegas Aces' A'ja Wilson earns fifth WNBA MVP, first to three-peat
