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A'ja Wilson breaks the WNBA single-season points record, surpassing Jewell Loyd's mark of 939

At the end of the 2023 WNBA season, after the Las Vegas Aces won their second consecutive title and A'ja Wilson was named Finals MVP, Wilson had a message.

“Whoever voted me fourth (MVP), thank you very much. Thank you very much,” Wilson said during the team's championship rally. “I want to say I'm grateful to you, because that just means I still have a lot of work to do.”

Although the 2024 Aces have disappointed compared to expectations, that has not been the case for Wilson. Just as she promised last October, Wilson returned as an improved player in her seventh WNBA season.

Wilson, a two-time MVP and Defensive Player of the Year, now holds the record for most points in a single season. Against the Indiana Fever — and rookie Caitlin Clark, who could challenge those records in the not-too-distant future — Wilson scored her 941st point in the second quarter, surpassing Jewell Loyd's season record of 939 points set in 2023.

Since the regular season was expanded to 40 games, many WNBA season records have been broken in the last two years. When the league debuted in 1997, the season was 28 games long. The next year it was 30, the year after that 32, which lasted until 2002. From 2003 to 2019, the regular season was 34 games, and during that time Diana Taurasi set the scoring standard that stood until last season.

Still, Wilson's statistics don't need any extra games to break records. In 34 games, Wilson had 929 points, more than anyone in league history, comfortably ahead of Taurasi's 860 in 2006. Wilson's scoring average was 27.3 points before Wednesday's game.

She needs just 83 points in her last five games to achieve the highest scoring average of a WNBA season and surpass Taurasi's mark of 25.3.

In addition to points, Wilson also leads the league in defensive rebounds, blocks, turnover percentage and win shares. It was a brilliant performance for the clear MVP favorite.

“I don't want anyone to ever forget how good (A'ja) is,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said before the Fever game. “She just does everything. She's in the middle of a run where sometimes I want to shake her and say, 'Do you know how good you are?' But then I don't want to shake her because I don't want to wake her up. She can just stay in the zone she's in.”

That zone put Wilson in lofty historical company. Seven seasons into her career, Wilson also threatens Taurasi's record as the league's all-time leading scorer. She has a better scoring average at that age (20.9 versus 20.7), and thanks to the WNBA's expanded schedule, Wilson can match Taurasi's point total in fewer seasons.

Right now, Wilson and the Aces are only eyeing a third title. But the all-time best can't help but set individual records along the way.

Required reading

(Photo: Justin Casterline / NBAE via Getty Images)

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