As the WNBA heads into the final third of the 2023 season, a number of players have emerged as frontrunners for the league MVP award.

Among the list of candidates once again is reigning WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, who has helped lead a stacked Las Vegas Aces team to a 24-2 record and first place in the league standings. Ensuring she stays in Las Vegas for the near future, the Aces signed Wilson to a two-year contract extension worth $200,000 annually in June.

“A’ja Wilson is a generational talent and a huge foundational piece to our team and organization,” Aces general manager Natalie Williams said at the time. “We are thrilled to have her re-sign and be here in Las Vegas for the next two years.”

Currently, Wilson is averaging 20.7 points (fifth in the league), 9.5 rebounds (third) and 2.3 blocks (first) per game. Her scoring average is slightly up from the 19.5 points per game she averaged last year, and her rebound numbers are roughly equivalent. The forward is also averaging more blocks than she did in 2022, when she was named Defensive Player of the Year.

A'ja called & said she's hosting a BLOCK PARTY 😤@_ajawilson22 has racked up 6 BLOCKS in the 1st half for a season-high in a game!

📺 @CBSSportsNet pic.twitter.com/OZRAl5mU3A

— WNBA (@WNBA) July 30, 2023

Last month, Wilson won the ESPY for Best WNBA Player and served as an All-Star Game captain for the second year in a row, as voted on by the fans, while making her third-straight All-Star Game appearance. Just this week, the two-time WNBA MVP helped the Aces become the first team to clinch a 2023 playoff berth. At 24-2, Las Vegas is tied with the 1998 Houston Comets for the best record through 26 games in WNBA history.

It seems that one of the only voids left to fill on Wilson’s growing list of accolades is to be featured on the WNBA edition of NBA 2K. Aces teammate Kelsey Plum agrees, and admires the way Wilson handles herself as the spotlight on her and Las Vegas basketball only gets brighter.

“I appreciate A’ja because I feel like she just remains true to who she is, regardless of the circumstances,” Plum recently told WSLAM. “And a lot of things are thrown her way — professionally, personally, things like that — but she just handles it with grace. And I just admire that.”

Wilson has been the face of a team that also boasts Plum, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Candace Parker (now out indefinitely with a foot injury). Each of those players has the ability to have a breakout performance on any given night, and still, Wilson finds ways to be the best player on the best team in the league.

More than anything, Wilson sets the standard for an Aces team that is far and away the one to beat as they look to win back-to-back WNBA Championships.

The No. 1 Kansas City Current officially clinched the 2025 NWSL Shield on Saturday, taking down the No. 6 Seattle Reign 2-0 to lift the 2021 expansion club's first-ever piece of league hardware.

"I thought that we won with a statement," said Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski after the match. "We showed that throughout the season we were the best team in the league."

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Kansas City is now the fastest Shield winner in NWSL history, claiming the hardware — and the postseason's top seeding — with five regular-season matches still remaining.

Needing a 16-point advantage atop the NWSL standings to secure the Shield over the weekend, Kansas City's Saturday win combined with Washington's Thursday draw with Angel City to put the second-place Spirit out of reach of the 2025 regular-season title.

The Current's dominance this year has the club riding a 17-2-2 overall record, racking up 14 straight results as Kansas City haven't lost a match since May 2nd and haven't conceded an NWSL goal since June 14th.

"It's just justification of all the work that we've done this year, and last year, too," added Andonovski. "We talked last year that we had a great season, and we said we were going to come out stronger.... We proved that we are a better team than last year and we are going to keep growing as we go forward."

Las Vegas star A'ja Wilson is the 2025 WNBA MVP, with the league announcing Sunday that the Aces forward earned her fourth career MVP award to set a new WNBA record.

Wilson received 51 of the media panel's 72 first-place votes, beating out fellow 2025 MVP finalists Napheesa Collier (Minnesota Lynx), Alyssa Thomas (Phoenix Mercury), Allisha Gray (Atlanta Dream), and Kelsey Mitchell (Indiana Fever).

"These are the moments that I'm like, 'No, this is why you wake up every morning and do what you do,'" Wilson said upon receiving the award.

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Previously named MVP in 2020, 2022, and 2024, Wilson's new 2025 trophy officially puts her ahead of retired WNBA legends and three-time winners Sheryl Swoopes, Lauren Jackson, and Lisa Leslie on the career MVP list.

Meanwhile, this year's win has Wilson joining former WNBA icon Cynthia Cooper as the league's second-ever back-to-back MVP.

En route to making history, the 29-year-old led the league in average points (23.4) and blocks per game (2.3) on the year, finishing second in rebounds per game (10.2) while playing much of the season's second half out of position as the the Aces' starting center.

"There's no Mt. Rushmore," Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon told Wilson. "You are the only one — you're Everest."

The No. 1 Minnesota Lynx took care of business on Sunday, overcoming a halftime deficit to top the No. 4 Phoenix Mercury 82-69 and open the 2025 WNBA semifinals with a 1-0 series lead.

Lynx stars Courtney Williams, Kayla McBride, and Napheesa Collier combined for 62 of Minnesota's 82 points in the win, as the home side outscored the Mercury 42-22 in the second half.

"We've been through a lot of adverse situations in the last two years together — we always know it's a team effort," McBride said. "We know in those moments when we need to brainstorm."

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After ousting 2024 champs New York on Friday, Phoenix failed to execute as confidently against the No. 1 team in the league in Minneapolis.

"They made adjustments, and I still think we had a lot of open shots," Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas said. "I felt like it was similar to the last series, where we just didn't hit open ones."

Phoenix dominated the paint in the first half, but struggled from behind the arc throughout the game, hitting just three of their 23 attempted three-pointers.

How to watch the Phoenix Mercury vs. Minnesota Lynx in Game 2

The No. 1 Minnesota Lynx will host the No. 4 Phoenix Mercury again in Game 2 of the 2025 WNBA semifinals at 7:30 PM ET on Tuesday.

The clash will air live on ESPN.

The underdog run of the No. 6 Indiana Fever continued on Sunday, as the unlikely 2025 WNBA Playoffs contender took down the No. 2 Las Vegas Aces 89-73 to grab an early 1-0 lead in the pair's best-of-five semifinals.

Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell scored a game-high 34 points — the second-highest in franchise postseason history and the most by any WNBA player in their career semifinals debut — as the Aces suffered their worst home playoff loss since 2021.

"They played with a greater sense of urgency," Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon said afterwards. "We couldn't catch up with their pace."

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Indiana is now on a three-game winning streak, barreling through the postseason despite losing five stars to season-ending injuries — including guard Caitlin Clark.

The Fever's defense proved key in Sunday's win, holding newly minted 2025 WNBA MVP A'ja Wilson to just 16 points off six made shots.

"We wanted to come in and be the aggressor right away, to make sure that we were dictating on the defensive end, and we were dictating from a pace standpoint," said Indiana head coach Stephanie White.

How to watch the Indiana Fever vs. Las Vegas Aces in Game 2

The No. 2 Las Vegas Aces will host the No. 6 Indiana Fever again in Game 2 of the 2025 WNBA semifinals on Tuesday.

The action will tip off at 9:30 PM ET, with live coverage on ESPN.