A’ja Wilson breaks WNBA single-season points record, passes Jewell Loyd’s mark of 939

At the end of the 2023 WNBA season, after the Las Vegas Aces had captured their second consecutive title and A’ja Wilson earned Finals MVP, Wilson had a message.

“Whoever you are out there that voted me fourth (for MVP), thank you. Thank you so much,” Wilson said during the team’s championship rally. “I wanna say I appreciate you, ’cause that just means that I got a lot more work to do.”

Although the 2024 Aces have disappointed relative to expectation, Wilson has not. Just as she vowed last October, Wilson returned an improved player in her seventh WNBA season.

Already a two-time MVP and Defensive Player of the Year, Wilson is now the record holder for the most points in a single season. Against the Indiana Fever — and rookie Caitlin Clark, who could challenge these marks in the not-so-distant future — Wilson scored her 941st point in the second quarter, breaking Jewell Loyd’s single-season mark of 939 set in 2023.

Many single-season WNBA records have been broken over the past two years since the regular season expanded to 40 games. When the league debuted in 1997, the season was 28 games long. The next year, 30, then the year after that, 32, which lasted through 2002. The regular season was 34 games long from 2003-19, during which time Diana Taurasi set the scoring standard that lasted until last season.

Nevertheless, Wilson’s statistics don’t require the extra games to break records. Through 34 games, Wilson had 929 points, more than anyone in league history, comfortably ahead of Taurasi’s 860 in 2006. Wilson was averaging 27.3 points entering Wednesday’s game.

She needs only 83 total points over the final five games to post the highest-scoring average in a WNBA season, passing Taurasi’s mark of 25.3.

In addition to points, Wilson is also leading the league in defensive rebounds, blocks, turnover percentage and win shares. It’s been a tour de force for the runaway MVP favorite.

“I don’t want it to ever get lost on how good (A’ja) is,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said before the Fever game. “She just does it all. She’s in the middle of a run that 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 whatever zone she’s in.”

That zone put Wilson in lofty historical company. Through seven seasons of her career, Wilson is also threatening Taurasi’s mark as the league’s all-time leading scorer. She has a better scoring average (20.9 versus 20.7) at this age, and thanks to the WNBA’s expanded schedule, Wilson can get to Taurasi’s total scoring output in fewer seasons.

For now, Wilson and the Aces only have their eyes on a third title. But the all-time great can’t help but set individual records in the process.

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(Photo: Justin Casterline / NBAE via Getty Images)