{"id":795311,"date":"2024-01-29T15:07:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T20:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=795311"},"modified":"2024-01-29T15:07:11","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T20:07:11","slug":"aja-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/the-magazine\/30-players-who-defined-slam\/aja-wilson\/","title":{"rendered":"THE 30 PLAYERS WHO DEFINED SLAM’S 30 YEARS: A’ja Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


For three decades we’ve covered many amazing basketball characters, but some stand above the rest\u2014not only because of their on-court skills (though those are always relevant), but because of how they influenced and continue to influence basketball culture, and thus influenced SLAM. Meanwhile, SLAM has also changed those players’ lives in various ways, as we’ve documented their careers with classic covers, legendary photos, amazing stories, compelling videos and more. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We compiled a group of individuals (programming note: 30 entries, not 30 people total) who mean something special to SLAM and to our audience. Read the full list here<\/a><\/strong> and order your copy of SLAM 248, where this list was originally published, here.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When A\u2019ja Wilson appeared alongside then-Las Vegas Aces teammate Liz Cambage on the cover of SLAM 223, they became the third and fourth women to ever do so. That was back in July 2019. Wilson was in her second year in the W after being selected as the No. 1 pick in 2018, and had already added WNBA Rookie of the Year and All-Rookie First Team honors to her professional basketball r\u00e9sum\u00e9. But A\u2019ja had yet to emerge into her full MVP form. The Gamecocks had yet to name the statue in her honor. The WNBA had yet to make her the face of the League. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As for us, well, not to brag or anything, but we always knew that the Columbia, SC, native was it. Way back in 2014, Ryan Jones interviewed her over the phone for a piece that ran in PUNKS (our high school section, now called The Come Up). At the time, Wilson hadn\u2019t yet graduated from Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, and she admitted in her interview that she was \u201cnervous\u201d leading up to the USA Basketball U18 national team tryouts. The interview, which is featured in the SLAM Digital Archive (go subscribe via slamgoods.com!) is a must-read for any and all basketball fans because it shows, in its truest form, the story of a star before even she knew she\u2019d become one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can say definitely the two things that stick out from the interview are just her poise and her confidence,\u201d Jones told me. \u201cYou\u2019ve interviewed enough of the HS kids so you know how it is\u2014some of them really come off like the kids they still are, but a relative few have this maturity that gets your attention. A\u2019ja definitely had that. And the confidence, too\u2014she wasn\u2019t cocky, but just very self-assured. Especially now as a parent of teens myself, I\u2019m always so impressed when anyone has that sort of confidence at 17 or 18.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wilson\u2019s decision to attend South Carolina was then a bold move for a top recruit, but Dawn Staley\u2019s program, in A\u2019ja\u2019s own words, was \u201con the rise,\u201d and Wilson, like her teammates, had the goal of winning a national championship. She\u2019d do that and a lot more during her college career. First, SEC Freshman of the Year. She\u2019d become an NCAA champion and the tournament\u2019s Most Outstanding Player in 2017, plus the consensus National Player of the Year and the Lisa Leslie Award winner the season after. Oh, and she was a First Team All-American and the SEC Player of the Year from 2016-18, and the conference\u2019s Defensive Player of the Year in 2016 and 2018. That\u2019s all before she made it to the League and graced the cover of SLAM not once, but on three different occasions\u2014including the WNBA champs issue two years in a row\u2014and last year\u2019s third issue of WSLAM. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I sat down with Wilson and her Aces teammates at the WSLAM 3 cover shoot, she exuded poise. She was unapologetically herself both in front of the camera and off it. It\u2019s that confidence that\u2019s driven her to take over the League and become a two-time MVP and two-time champion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our 2023 Champs cover of Wilson rocking black Air Force 1s and standing so valiantly is the epitome of what makes women\u2019s basketball so exciting and so damn fun. She\u2019s the face of the League, of WSLAM, of where the game is heading in the years to come. And just as we\u2019ve shown her love over the years, she\u2019s shown it right back, from attending our 2023 WNBA All-Star party which celebrated the WSLAM 3 cover release to consistently reposting our content. Relationships like these are bigger than magazine covers and interviews, but we\u2019re so grateful that we get to do what we do with stars like her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWatching her in the [almost] decade since [the PUNKS interview], she\u2019s definitely one of those players I look back on with a little bit of pride, not that I predicted HOF-caliber greatness, but just that from talking to her at that age, I expected her to be really, really good,\u201d Jones says. \u201cIt\u2019s been very cool to see her basically be the whole package, as far as one of the handful of players with both the game and personality to basically carry the W into the next generation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FULL LIST<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
COP THE<\/strong> MAG<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Photo via Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For three decades we’ve covered many amazing basketball characters, but some stand above the rest\u2014not only because of their on-court skills (though those are always relevant), but because of how they influenced and continue to influence basketball culture, and thus influenced SLAM. Meanwhile, SLAM has also changed those players’ lives in various ways, as we’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":424,"featured_media":796208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65150],"tags":[11149,62525,65151,63726],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-795311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-30-players-who-defined-slam","tag-aja-wilson","tag-feature-1","tag-slam-30-years","tag-wslam"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795311"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":796209,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795311\/revisions\/796209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795311"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=795311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}