Aces star A’ja Wilson named Time’s athlete of the year

The accolades keep coming for A’ja Wilson.

The Aces center capped off a historic 2025 by being named Time magazine’s athlete of the year, the publication announced Tuesday.

Wilson was unavailable for comment.

Wilson won her fourth league MVP this season, and second consecutive, by averaging a league-high 23.4 points and grabbing 10.2 rebounds.

Named the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year for a third time this year, Wilson led the league in blocks for the fourth consecutive season.

The 29-year-old anchored the Aces to a franchise-record 16-game winning streak to close the regular season and pushed them to the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

After playing winner-take-all series’ in the first round against Seattle and semifinals against Indiana, Wilson and the Aces swept the Phoenix Mercury to win their third championship in four years.

Wilson, who hit the game-winning shot with 0.3 seconds left in Game 3, won her second Finals MVP.

“What’s next for me is just to continue to sharpen the tools in my toolbox, whatever that may look like,” Wilson said Oct. 14. “Making sure that I’m always just going to be my true self for my teammates. I need to do that by, obviously, basketball, but also my leadership skills.

“As a team as a whole, obviously we want to win more. We want to hang more banners. But I think this year let us know that, even in 2022 and 2023, the journeys were very different. No journey is the same, but you can still get the same result if you buy in.”

It’s the second year in a row a WNBA player has been given the honor from Time, with Indiana guard Caitlin Clark receiving the honor in 2024.

Wilson also shined off the court with the launch of her A’One signature shoe with Nike. Her “Pink A’ura” shoes sold out within minutes of going on sale on May 6.

She became the first Black woman since Sheryl Swoopes in 2002 to have a Nike signature shoe and first since former teammate Candace Parker released one with Adidas.

Wilson had her No. 22 retired at alma mater South Carolina on Feb. 2, where she was a four-time All-American and the unanimous national player of the year in 2018. She led the Gamecocks to the program’s first Final Four in 2015 and first national championship in 2017.

Wilson already has a statue outside of Colonial Life Arena on South Carolina’s campus.

The Aces drafted Wilson No. 1 overall in 2018. She’s since been a seven-time all star, a five-time All-WNBA first team selection and a five-time all-defensive selection.

Wilson is putting herself in the conversation of not just the greatest women’s basketball player of all time, but one of the greatest athletes ever.

“I look at A’ja, and we’re living in an era where we can see her in real time,” Aces president Nikki Fargas told the Review-Journal on Oct. 15. “You gotta discuss her like you discuss a Serena (Williams), right? You gotta discuss her when Michael (Jordan) played, or dominant like Tiger Woods. That’s who A’ja Wilson is. In my eyes, she’s the GOAT (greatest of all time).”

Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.