A’ja Wilson’s TIME Athlete of the Year honor didn’t need this bad-faith WNBA narrative

A’ja Wilson, the 4x WNBA MVP winner and 3x WNBA Champion, was selected as TIME Magazine’s Athlete of the Year, it was announced Tuesday. Wilson is an excellent candidate, having won her 4th MVP award before the age of 30 in 2025, and has also collected various other awards, including the WNBA’s Defensive Player of the Year, highest scorer, and Finals MVP awards, and became the fastest WNBA player in history to score 5,000 points.

Her dominance this year transcends sport and dives into culture as well. Wilson released her first signature shoe, the Nike A’One, this spring and the stock sold out in minutes. She is also a New York Times Bestselling Author for her debut book, Dear Black Girls: How to be True to You. Wilson has become a role model for girls, unapologetic about her skill and talent, all while preferring to let her game speak for itself and mastering the art of humble confidence.

The thing about Wilson is that she is never overly flashy about anything she does, yet her excellence just shines through; it’s a part of her being. She’s excellent at being unapologetic but not boastful, and everything she ever says about herself can be backed up by her accolades. She’s the kind of person who waits until there is undisputed proof of her greatness and then lets you know about it. She’s past the point now of having to prove herself, of course, and can hopefully enter a stage of her career now where she is celebrated and just enjoys everything that comes with creating a legacy in real-time.

As part of her TIME honor, the magazine wrote a feature on her that included sights and sounds from the Las Vegas Aces’ championship parade in October, as well as a one-on-one interview about a month later. The story talks about her iconic parade outfit, including the Marvel Thanos gauntlet she customized to include all her accomplishments from the 2025 WNBA season. She talked about the Aces’ historic turnaround this year, going from a .500-level team midseason to winning a championship, with Wilson calling it a “wake-up call.”

Another interesting part of the article was where the interviewer talks about the growth of the WNBA. Obviously, that is something being highlighted right now as the WNBA’s players negotiate what will be a historic Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the league. Wilson mentioned in the TIME article that the players “are not moving until we get exactly what we want.”

Despite this whole TIME honor being a celebration of Wilson’s achievements this year, it was interesting to see the feature bring up Caitlin Clark. Specifically, there was a part about Clark’s injury this season being “vindication” for the league, because despite Clark missing most of the season, they still recorded growth in viewership and attendance records (emphasis mine):

Her rocket-ship run comes at an opportune time. In 2024, Caitlin Clark’s rookie season helped the WNBA hit milestone TV and attendance figures. But Clark’s emergence created a toxic, racially divisive narrative that she was almost singularly responsible for salvaging a league whose foundation had been built by a mostly Black player base. This storyline bothered Wilson, who in 2024 earned her third WNBA MVP award and her second Olympic gold medal in Paris, where she was named tournament MVP. “It wasn’t a hit at me, because I’m going to do me regardless,” she says. “I’m going to win this MVP, I’ll win a gold medal, y’all can’t shake my résumé. It was more so, let’s not lose the recipe. Let’s not lose the history. It was erased for a minute. And I don’t like that. Because we have tons of women that have been through the grimiest of grimy things to get the league where it is today.”

The 2025 WNBA campaign provided a measure of vindication for many players. Despite Clark’s missing most of the season with an injury—something Wilson, to be clear, did not cheer—viewership for both the regular season and postseason was up 5% to 6% on a per-game average across ESPN networks. “Sometimes you need a proof in the pudding,” says Wilson. “The biggest thing for us, and why I was so happy, is that we continue to rise to the occasion. This was just a matter of time for us to really bloom and blossom. Because we have been invested in each other and our craft for a very long time. It was just like, ‘They’re going to pay attention.’”

Now, obviously, Clark is a huge part of every WNBA conversation these days, but it seems like a stretch to bring her up in a conversation that is supposed to be about A’ja Wilson’s year. Moreso, using a word like “vindication” promotes the bad-faith narrative that other WNBA players hate Clark, or are rooting for her downfall. The article made sure to include a disclaimer that Wilson did not celebrate the fact that Clark was injured, but why even bring it up at all?

There are so many other ways to quantify that the league saw growth this year. You can dive into the numbers — per ESPN, the 2025 season was the most-watched season in league history, averaging 1.2 million viewers and up 5% year-over-year. The WNBA Finals in 2025 were the second-most-watched WNBA Finals of all time, only following last season’s Finals between New York and Minnesota. You can dive into the support the WNBPA is receiving as they negotiate contracts — including fan support, and support from other leagues’ unions.

Objectively, it is true that Clark being out for most of the season and the WNBA not falling into ruin like some may have thought is a good sign for the entire league. Yet, at a time when the players need to be a united front, including a section that almost seems like it’s digging to find a reason to pull them apart, is lame. It wouldn’t even be as bad if the chosen word had not been “vindicated,” as the implication there is almost that players celebrated that they’d had success without Clark, rather than just celebrating their success.

Wilson’s quote in that section of the feature says it best — “… we continue to rise to the occasion. This was just a matter of time for us to really bloom and blossom. Because we have been invested in each other and our craft for a very long time.” It’s not about one specific person being in or out of the lineup; it’s that no matter what is thrown at these players, they will rise up to the occasion. They are best when they come together as a collective, instead of being pitted against each other by the media in order to fuel false narratives.

A’ja Wilson was the best women’s basketball player in 2025, by a long shot. She has been for many years. That doesn’t mean anyone else is made to be less than; it just means Wilson has a level of talent that, in her words, “is hard to catch up with.” That’s what she thinks the quest to be the Greatest of All Time is: Putting yourself in a position where it would be hard for anyone else to catch up. Not tearing everyone else down so you’re the sole person standing at the mountaintop.

The thing that makes Wilson so good at what she does, but also such a good role model, is that she never depends on anyone else for validation. She focuses on her work, on herself, and lets her starpower shine through that way. She’ll never need anyone else to falter to prove that she’s great; she just is.