A’ja Wilson Wins a Fifth MVP and Skips the Night

A’ja Wilson won a record fifth WNBA MVP on Oct. 8 and said she will skip Friday’s pregame ceremony. The Las Vegas Aces trail the Golden State Valkyries 0-2 in a best-of-five semifinal, with Game 3 set for 9:30 p.m. ET at Michelob ULTRA Arena.

The 30-year-old center cried on the practice court when the news landed, then drew a hard line about the walk that usually follows it. She will not stand for the trophy presentation. She will warm up.

The Trophy Walk She Refused

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert handed Wilson a phone on the Aces’ practice floor. Former vice president Kamala Harris was on the other end, delivering the fifth Kia WNBA Most Valuable Player award in a voice message. Wilson called Harris “a woman of our history” and said she was grateful to share that moment.

The Aces still plan a pregame ceremony Friday, Oct. 9, before they try to keep their season alive. Wilson wants no part of the walk.

I love the fans, but I will not be doing that. I will be warming up with my team. Everyone knows how much of a competitor I am and what my main focus is.

A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas Aces center, after the 2026 MVP announcement

That is not a shrug at the fans. It is a player who has already watched two trophy nights turn into losses, and who now has to win three straight games against a Valkyries team that has not trailed this series for long.

Two Ceremonies, Two Losses

Wilson said in May that she hates ceremonies like this. The tape since then has not argued with her.

THE NIGHTS LAS VEGAS CELEBRATED FIRST

1. Sept. 21, 2025: The Aces honor Wilson as a first-time four-time MVP, then lose Game 1 of the semifinals at home to the Indiana Fever 89-73. Wilson scores 16 points on 6-of-22 shooting.
2. May 9, 2026: Las Vegas hands out championship rings at T-Mobile Arena before the opener. The Phoenix Mercury win 99-66, a 33-point margin that is the largest season-opening defeat for a defending WNBA champion.
3. Oct. 8, 2026: Engelbert and Harris deliver MVP No. 5 on the practice court, a day before a must-win Game 3.
4. Oct. 9, 2026: The Aces schedule the public ceremony anyway. Wilson says she will be on the floor with her team instead.

Last year’s MVP night cost them home court against Indiana. They still won that series and swept Phoenix in the Finals. Ring night in May was uglier, a 33-point hole on a floor full of owners and hardware. Wilson is not running that tape back with the season on the line.

How the 2026 MVP Vote Landed

There was no race for first. Wilson took 65 of 74 first-place votes and nine second-place votes for 713 points, appearing first or second on every ballot from the media panel. Players got 10 points for first, seven for second, five for third, three for fourth, and one for fifth.

2026 KIA WNBA MVP BALLOT

The live fight on the ballot is not whether Wilson won. It is who sat behind her. Minnesota rookie Olivia Miles took six first-place votes and 442 points, ahead of Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlin Clark. Clark landed on 55 of the 74 cards, with a single first-place vote, which means 19 voters left her off entirely. Wilson’s card was clean. The gap from 713 to 442 is the season in one column.

The honor pays $60,000 and a Tiffany & Co. trophy. Cynthia Cooper, in 1997 and 1998, is the only other player who has even won it in back-to-back seasons. Wilson now has three in a row on top of the 2020 and 2022 awards.

A 26.2-Point Season With 13 Nights of 30

Wilson averaged 26.2 points, 9.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.9 blocks, and 1.4 steals in 32.0 minutes across 41 games. She led the league in scoring for a third straight season. She led in blocks for a fifth straight year and the sixth time overall (2020 and 2022 through 2026). Her 26.2 scoring average is the second-highest in league history, behind her own 26.9 in 2024. She shot 52.7 percent from the field, 40.4 percent from three, and 86.4 percent from the line, all second-best marks of her career.

WILSON’S 2026 COUNTING SEASON

• Thirty-point nights: 13, tying the single-season record she set in 2025.
• Twenty-point nights: 33, third-most in a WNBA season, behind Mitchell’s 35 this year and Wilson’s 34 in 2024.
• Twenty-and-10 games: 19, the league high, including two runs of four straight.
• Thirty-and-10 games: 7 this season, 33 for her career, a WNBA record.

On May 15 in Connecticut she scored 45 points on 15-of-18 shooting and 13-of-13 free throws, becoming the first player with multiple career games of at least 45. She finished with 1,073 points, second to Mitchell’s 1,086, and with four of the seven highest single-season point totals in league history. She took all four Western Conference Player of the Month awards, the first player to sweep a conference’s monthly honors twice (she also did it in 2020). Her league efficiency rating was 30.4.

The career scoring average of 22.1 is now the highest in WNBA history over 308 games. She sits 11th on the all-time scoring list at 6,792 points. She has 50 career games of at least 30 points, second to Diana Taurasi’s 54. That is not on the floor Friday until she checks in.

Wilson Joins Jordan on the Five-MVP List

No other WNBA player has more than three MVP awards. Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Lauren Jackson each won three. The list of WNBA MVP winners now has Wilson’s name on 2020, 2022, 2024, 2025, and 2026.

On the NBA side, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar holds six NBA Most Valuable Player awards. Michael Jordan won five. Bill Russell won four. Wilson, in her ninth season, is the first player in either league to reach five who is not Jordan or Abdul-Jabbar.

WHAT FIVE MVPS SIT ON TOP OF

• Titles: three championships in 2022, 2023, and 2025, plus two Finals MVP awards.
• Defense: three Defensive Player of the Year awards and four All-Defensive first teams.
• The rest: eight All-Star selections, five All-WNBA first teams, three scoring titles, six block titles, and the 2018 Rookie of the Year award.

Aces president Nikki Fargas called her “one of one.” Coach Becky Hammon had already run out of Earthbound comparisons.

Heavily decorated, never duplicated 👑

A'ja Wilson poses with her 5️⃣ @Kia WNBA MVP trophies!#KiaMVP | #WNBASeason30 pic.twitter.com/Id0ERamEaF

— WNBA (@WNBA) October 8, 2026

Golden State Is One Win From the Finals

The Valkyries are in their second season. They went 32-12 and took the West’s No. 2 seed. The defending champion Aces went 31-13 and settled for No. 3, then beat Indiana in three games in the first round. This series has not followed that script.

ACES-VALKYRIES SEMIFINALS

Wilson scored 24 in each of the first two games. In Game 1 she went 8-of-21 with four rebounds. In Game 2 she was 9-of-16 with seven rebounds, and Las Vegas still needed a frantic close just to make it a two-point night. Golden State led by 17 in the second half. Chelsea Gray tied it at 74 with 2:10 left. Wilson’s layup put the Aces in front with 1:36 to play, their only lead. Gabby Williams answered in the midrange. Veronica Burton hit a 3-pointer from the wing with 41.5 seconds left for 79-76, and Las Vegas never tied it again.

Through five playoff games Wilson is at 28.8 points per game. She had 38 points and 16 rebounds on 15-of-19 shooting in the first-round opener against Indiana, then 36 in the closer. The Valkyries have held her to 24 and 24 and won both anyway. Depth has been the problem, not her usage. Golden State can punch a Finals ticket on the Aces’ floor Friday if that pattern holds.

Fifteen-Year-Old A’ja Did Not Dream This

Hammon had compared her to a mountain. After the fifth trophy, the coach went off the map.

I’ve said take her off Mount Rushmore, she’s Everest. Now, I’m taking her off Everest and I just have to put her on a different planet.

Becky Hammon, Las Vegas Aces head coach

Wilson, surrounded by the trophies, went the other direction in time. She said this one hit harder because the girl who wrote the goals down never wrote this one.

“This one here is just a little bit different,” she said. “As a girl, you dream so big, and you write your goals out, and you just never imagine that you will be able to check them off. That’s why I cried harder on this one because 15-year-old A’ja wasn’t sitting up here dreaming about being a five-time MVP. She wasn’t dreaming about being a three-time champion. She was dreaming about surviving this world. So for me to sit up here surrounded by these trophies, it means a little bit more to me.”

The trophies will be in the building Friday, Oct. 9. Wilson intends to be on the floor early, in warmups, with a series to save and no interest in another parade before the ball goes up.