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Las Vegas Aces center A’Ja Wilson is undoubtedly one of the best players in the WNBA, having won the MVP award three times since 2020, in addition to two WNBA titles. But A’Ja Wilson is not the WNBA star that’s revolutionized the league’s popularity: Caitlin Clark is.
Despite being names TIME Magazine’s Athlete of the Year — which hilariously led to Sheila Johnson, the owner of the Washington Mystics, insanely suggesting that the whole league, and not just Clark, should be given the award — Caitlin Clark was not named in its Women of the Year issue.
A’ja Wilson, alongside Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Jordan Chiles, were named in the issue, however, with TIME noting that the pair both “reached individual career highs” while also helping to grow their respective sports. The WNBA smashed all of its previous viewership and attendance records last season, for example.
“Coming off back-to-back WNBA championships with the Las Vegas Aces in 2022 and 2023, Wilson set new WNBA records for points and rebounds and picked up her third MVP title. She helped lead the U.S. Olympic team to gold in Paris and was named tournament MVP. Off the court, she published a best-selling book, Dear Black Girls. And in February, she unveiled her new A’One sneaker for Nike, becoming the first Black WNBA player to have a signature shoe since 2010,” TIME said of Wilson’s year.
Wilson who was recently confirmed to be dating NBA star and fellow Team USA basketball player Bam Adebayo, averaged a career-high 26.9 points and 11.9 rebounds per game this season.
The issue that some basketball fans will have with Wilson being named to TIME’s Women of the Year issue over Clark is that, while Wilson may be the league’s best player, Clark is largely credited with being the driving force behind the explosion in popularity that the WNBA has seen over the last year: WNBA games featuring Clark get twice the ratings of regular WNBA games and three times as many viewers vervsus games that aired last season.