We will not do our official WNBA Tuesday awards analysis for the 2025 season until it’s over and all the hardware has been handed out. However, it’s kind of clear right now who the MVP should be this year: Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson. We usually do not do preemptive campaigning for such things, but it’s really obvious to us, as she leads the league in both Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and Win Shares (WS) right now.

She has a 3.3-point lead over the next-best player in PER and a 0.8 WS lead over the next-best player in overall sabermetric value. Her team started off 9-11 but has closed 19-3 since—including a current 14-game win streak that has carried the Aces to the top four in the standings: that means a home advantage for the first round of the playoffs when it was looking in July like the team was going to be home for the title chase.

Her WNBA resume is outstanding so far: three-time voted MVP already, seven-time All Star in eight seasons, two-time WNBA champ, 2024 scoring champ and probably the 2025 scoring champ as well, 2018 ROTY, two-time DPOY, 2023 Finals MVP, etc. Her rookie year featured 4.4 WS in just 33 games, again in comparison to the overrated Caitlin Clark, who earned 3.0 WS in 40 games as a rookie in 2024. Uh huh.

When people talk about the best player in the league right now, it’s a short convo: it should start and end with Wilson, even though many other athletes have posted outstanding seasons in 2025, too. Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier (2nd in PER, 2nd in WS) is right there behind Wilson, while Phoenix Mercury F Alyssa Thomas (3rd, 5th) impressively reclaimed her single-season assists record this year.

Indiana Fever F Aliyah Boston (6th, 4th), the No. 1 overall pick in 2023, has helped her team back to the playoffs despite injuries aplenty. Remember, she dropped 6.0 WS on the league as a rookie in 2023 across 40 games, doubling up Clark in first-season value. And Atlanta Dream F Brionna Jones (7th, 6th) has put together an excellent season for a surprised playoff contender. Two other players finished Top 10 in both:

  • Seattle Storm F Nneka Ogwumike (8th, 9th), the league MVP in 2016
  • Aces guard Jackie Young (9th, 8th), who helped Wilson revitalize the Las Vegas squad midsummer

Even rookie sensation Paige Bueckers currently is cracking the Top 10 PER list this year, something Clark didn’t come close to doing last year. This represents a lot of outstanding talent on the floor this year, and yet the sports mediots have been quite silent in promoting any of these women as hard as they did for You Know Who last year. Why? Well, they’re all Black women (except Bueckers); that certainly is a factor, sadly.

With six Black players in the Top 10 for both PER and WS, these are the players the league “experts” should be talking about constantly in their MVP discussion. We hope that happens, and we certainly acknowledge that Young’s season takes some practical value away from Wilson’s stellar season, as her teammate. Collier has been transcendent when healthy, and Thomas keeps raising her game as she gets into her late career.

We will revisit this all again once the dust settles, but every WNBA fan should know these women above. Now.