Las Vegas knew long before TIME did. Around here, greatness tends to announce itself in neon. And this season, no one shone brighter than A’ja Wilson, the Aces’ 6-foot-4, engine of a dynasty, and now, officially, TIME’s 2025 Athlete of the Year. Because, of course, she is.
Wilson didn’t just dominate the year. She authored one of the greatest individual seasons in the history of professional basketball, women’s or men’s. A scoring title. A third Defensive Player of the Year award. A fourth MVP trophy, the first in league history to stack that many. And weeks later, another championship parade rolling down the Strip. The Aces swept the Phoenix Mercury in the Finals, and A’ja Wilson walked away with her second Finals MVP.
Then came the stat that sounds like myth:
She became the first player in WNBA or NBA history to win a championship, Finals MVP, regular-season MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season.
The Infinity Stones of basketball. All collected by one player. One season. One city.
So she leaned into the legend. At the Aces’ parade, Wilson walked out wearing a Thanos-inspired golden glove — each gem labeled with one of her season-defining achievements: Scoring title. 5K (the fastest in WNBA history to eclipse 5,000 career points). DPOY. MVP. Finals MVP. Champ. Six stones. One universe, firmly under her control.
“When you’ve collected everything, that’s Thanos,” Wilson told TIME. “And this year, I collected everything. I don’t really talk much crap. I kind of let my game do it… because no one’s ever done what I’ve done.”
But this wasn’t a year without turbulence. Midseason, the Aces were a .500 team. They took a 50-plus point beating in Minnesota that made the defending champs look anything but inevitable. And then—something clicked. Las Vegas rattled off 16 straight wins, pushed through two grueling playoff series that went the distance, and landed in the Finals with momentum roaring like the music inside Michelob Ultra Arena.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to get knocked down to get built back up,” Wilson said. “2025 was a wake-up call… There’s somebody out there trying to take your job. You need to make sure you’re great at it, every single day.”
She sealed the season , and maybe her status as the best women’s basketball player in the world with a signature moment she’d long been waiting for.
The Finals Winning Shot
Game 3 of the Finals. Clock winding down. Tie game. Wilson pulling up with 2.2 seconds left on the shot. It was an unmistakable nod to her No. 22 jersey. Legacy cemented.
“When you think about a lot of GOATs, they have those career-defining shots,” she said. “I didn’t really have one of those… It was never really like a moment of, ‘That’s why she is who she is.’”
Now she does.
Her father, Roscoe, joked to TIME, “I’m waiting on them to call for the Academy Award and the Emmy.” Don’t put it past her. At this rate, she’s collecting hardware like Vegas collects headliners.
Wilson joins Leonardo DiCaprio (Entertainer of the Year), KPop Demon Hunters (Breakthrough of the Year), and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan among TIME’s 2025 honorees, a group defined by global impact, industry shifts and cultural footprints.
Asked about the greatest-of-all-time debates, Wilson didn’t shy away.
“I think I’m on my way there,” she said. “I’m making it real hard for people to chase after me. That’s what it means to be the GOAT.”
Vegas Sports Today will just say it plainly:
The chase is already behind her.
And she’s still running ahead.
