NBA star Kawhi Leonard is picking up what WNBA players are putting down.

The Los Angeles Clippers forward has incorporated the step-through move, which involves legally picking up the pivot foot and stepping around a defender to drive to the basket, into his game. When asked about the move, Leonard said he first noticed the move in the WNBA.

“A lot of WNBA players do it. I thought it was just a WNBA rule at first, but I realized that you could pick up that back foot,” he said.

DeWanna Bonner, one of the leading scorers for the Connecticut Sun, has made it her signature move.

A’ja Wilson also used the deceptive move effectively for the Las Vegas Aces during the WNBA Finals against the New York Liberty.

A’ja Wilson did not see Usher at the Las Vegas Aces’ WNBA championship parade. But she could be seeing him very soon.

Wilson offered up multiple invites to the eight-time Grammy Award winner, but ultimately the “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love” singer couldn’t attend the parade. Rapper 2 Chainz performed following the team’s parade and celebration.

Still, Usher didn’t let Wilson’s invites go unanswered. He replied Wednesday on a social media, writing: “I wish I could’ve been there, but pull up to my show… I got U.”

“Shoutout to the defending champs, the Vegas Aces. A’ja Wilson, I got your message, I see you, I hear you,” he said in the accompanying video. “Couldn’t be at the parade but wanted to send this out to you to say congratulations to you and all the lovely ladies that once again did it again.”

He then extended an invite to Wilson and the rest of the Aces squad to come to his “My Way” Las Vegas residency show.

“I wanted to invite you to come see the show, come see me do it my way here in Vegas,” he said. “We stick together, we love one another. Congratulations on this day and I’ll see you soon.”

Sydney Colson later took to social media, saying that Wilson had hit up the team group chat about the invite.

“A’ja hit us in the group chat talkin bout WE are invited to go see Usher, but now that I’m seeing the video…SHE was invited,” she wrote. “Which is cool, that’s fine! But why lie to ur teammates?”

Wilson responded jokingly, writing: “Lolololololololol syd scores 2 points in game 4 and think she can get usher tickets awww.”

The Las Vegas Aces had a lot to say during their 2023 WNBA championship parade, with much of it directed at the New York Liberty.

There was a lot of talking about going for a three-peat, with WNBA Finals MVP A’ja Wilson noting that the Aces are “going to do this s–t again.” The Aces were the first team in 21 years to win back-to-back titles, beating the Liberty in four games.

“We’re going to keep coming back, and everybody hates it,” Kelsey Plum told the crowd at Monday’s parade.

Yet the Aces’ Game 3 loss to the Liberty — their only loss throughout the 2023 playoffs — still sticks out as a source of frustration. In particular, Sabrina Ionescu’s “night night” celebration after hitting a key 3-pointer remains a point of contention. Sydney Colson mimicked the gesture after the Aces’ series-clinching win over the Liberty, and it came up again during the parade.

“They messed up when they went ‘night night,’” Chelsea Gray said. “And Sydney said I’m sitting on that Sabrina!”

Meanwhile, head coach Becky Hammon called out Liberty star Breanna Stewart’s Game 4 stat line, which included her going 3-for-17 from the field while being guarded by Alysha Clark.

“Alysha Clark was my rookie in San Antonio,” Hammon said, to which Clark replied: “Talk about it.”

“3-for-17 is you need to talk about it,” Hammon responded.

Wilson, meanwhile, was focused on her MVP snub, opting to wear a shirt that had the voting numbers on the back. She finished third for the regular-season award behind Stewart and Connecticut Sun star Alyssa Thomas. Wilson also called out the person that voted for her in fourth place, noting that she was going to use it as fuel for next season.

And at the end of the night, the Aces couldn’t resist getting in one more “night night.”

A’ja Wilson took one last shot at the person who put her in fourth place on their WNBA MVP ballot.

During the Las Vegas Aces’ championship parade Monday, Wilson wore a shirt that featured the MVP voting results on the back. Wilson received 17 first-place votes, 25 second-place votes, 17 third-place votes and one fourth-place vote, and she finished third overall behind Breanna Stewart and Alyssa Thomas.

But Wilson had the last laugh, winning the WNBA title over Stewart’s New York Liberty and the Finals MVP award. And during the Aces’ celebration, Wilson spoke about using the snub as fuel for next season.

“Whoever you are out there that voted me fourth, thank you. Thank you so much,” she said. “I wanna say I appreciate you because that just means I got a lot more work to do. And we coming back. We coming back baby. We’re gonna do this s–t again.”

Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon touted Wilson during her speech, calling out the player who she believes will be the “GOAT of the GOATs.”

“Listen here, I’m an old ass b–ch,” Hammon said. “I played against all of the GOATs. Oh, I’m gonna put it out there: This gonna be the GOAT of the GOATs. She don’t even know how I’m about to be on that ass, because she’s that good.

“I’m trying to think of a NBA comp, I’m trying to think of a WNBA comp. And there ain’t nobody in the world like A’ja Wilson, who willed us on her back.”

Hammon and Wilson’s college coach, South Carolina’s Dawn Staley, also have called out Wilson’s MVP snub. For Hammon, that’s a sure sign that the voters “didn’t do their homework,” she said during the Aces’ playoff run.

A’ja Wilson’s WNBA Finals run is more impressive than we knew.

The 27-year-old forward has been spotted wearing a hand cast in the days following the Las Vegas Aces’ championship win over the New York Liberty. Wilson, who was named Finals MVP after the Aces’ 3-1 series win, led Las Vegas with 23.8 points, 11.8 rebounds and 2.3 blocks through nine playoff games.

On Friday, two days after the title-clinching victory, Wilson and her teammates went out to bingo together, as chronicled by guard Sydney Colson on social media. Players sported colorful wigs, but Wilson had an extra accessory: a black cast on her left hand.

Wilson again could be seen in the cast Monday during the Aces’ championship parade on the Las Vegas Strip. While Wilson has not addressed her injury in the wake of the WNBA Finals, teammate Kelsey Plum offered an explanation on her Instagram Stories during the celebration.

“She played with a banged thumb post-All Star…” Plum wrote alongside a photo of Wilson in her cast.

So according to Plum, Wilson played the entire second half of the season with a thumb injury. But she didn’t let that slow her down during the Aces’ run to a second straight WNBA title.

The Las Vegas Aces are hosting their WNBA championship parade Monday on the Strip. And according to Finals MVP A’ja Wilson, the back-to-back champions are raising the stakes for their 2023 celebration.

After the Aces won their first title in franchise history in 2022, Wilson told fans to come to the parade “four shots in.” Make it double for 2023, she said after the Aces won the 2023 Finals over the New York Liberty.

“Last year I said four shots. But this year, we going eight,” Wilson said, to the delight of her teammates. “So get ready.

“Children, drink your ginger ale, have fun, listen to your parents, go to bed on time, go to school, get good grades. Old people — not old people, but people that aren’t children — drink responsibly, but we about to turn it up out here.”

The parade, which is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET Monday, will run up Las Vegas Boulevard toward T-Mobile Arena. It will end outside the arena at Toshiba Plaza.

During the Aces’ 2022 parade, Kelsey Plum promised it would not be the last. Since then, Las Vegas has celebrated a Stanley Cup with the 2023 NHL champion Golden Knights, and now the Aces are back for another party.

“This is a long time coming,” Plum said in 2022. “I wanna let you guys know that this is just the beginning. We’re just getting started.”

The love between A’ja Wilson and South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley is palpable.

Staley has been supportive of her former player as Wilson has taken the WNBA by storm, just as she has with her other former Gamecocks. And there’s not another college coach like Staley, who has become a constant on WNBA sidelines.

After the Aces’ championship win Wednesday, a postgame moment between Staley and former South Carolina star Alaina Coates went viral, with Coates writing on social media that “words can’t express” how much she loves and appreciates Staley.

Ahead of Game 3 in New York, Staley surprising Wilson at New York’s Barclays Center also went viral. And during Game 4, she even offered to “yell at the refs” for Wilson, Coates and the Aces.

In the aftermath of the title win, Wilson took the time to speak about what her relationship with Staley means to her and the moment the two shared together after the game.

“She’s watched me win on every level at this point,” Wilson said, noting that Staley coached her to an NCAA championship and to Olympic gold. “That’s a special moment between us.

“Everyone knows in this room, Coach Staley is like my second mom. So for her to come out – and she texted me, she was like, ‘I’m coming to this one’ – she didn’t surprise me this time. It was just a true moment and I knew I had to find her.

“She has really molded me into the player that I am today. She spent countless hours just telling me what I need to do at the pro level. I thought that relationship was kind of going to disappear as I got to a pro [level] but we’ve still stayed together. … It was just truly a special moment. It was a moment that, that’s gonna be forever, something that I tell my kids about.”

LeBron James wants just one thing out of the WNBA Finals for A’ja Wilson: her own signature shoe.

Following Wilson’s Finals MVP performance for the back-to-back champion Las Vegas Aces, James took to Instagram, where he called Wilson “the TRUTH!!!!!!” The NBA star gifted Wilson with a custom pair of his signature Nike sneakers ahead of Game 1 of the Finals, and she played in them throughout the series.

“Signature shoe coming!!” he wrote on Instagram Stories. “I mean what we talking about! Congrats @aja22wilson.”

Of course, James isn’t the first to suggest that Wilson should have her own shoe, and he certainly shouldn’t be the last. Several players have released shoes in recent years – including Breanna Stewart with Puma, as well as Elena Delle Donne and Sabrina Ionescu with Nike.

Wilson is also a Nike athlete. So why shouldn’t she be added to the list? Aces head coach Becky Hammon said following Game 1 of the WNBA Finals that Wilson “needs her own shoe.”

“She is the two-time MVP. I’ll toot her horn because she won’t,” she said. “Olympic gold medalist, best defensive player two years running, her team’s (success)… Stop. Stop.”

Wilson, though, is biding her time.

“We’ll see what goes on, but in due time I believe we’re going to get something moving and shaking. But I’m blessed just to have my name in that conversation,” she told The Messenger.

“A lot of players don’t get signature shoes so for people to say I should or demanding that I get one, I’m blessed to be in that situation. So, in due time, we’ll see, until then I’m going to rock these LeBron 21s until the heel falls off.”

From Alysha Clark to Rhyne Howard to Ja Morant, everyone is still trying to figure out who put A’ja Wilson in fourth place on their WNBA MVP ballot.

The Las Vegas Aces star was named Finals MVP after averaging 23.8 points and 11.8 rebounds per game through her team’s postseason run. That included a 24-point, 16-rebound performance in Game 4 of the Finals to seal back-to-back-titles for the Aces.

And after the 70-69 win over the New York Liberty, people were demanding answers for the regular-season MVP voting.

“3rd place + a 4th place vote,” Wilson posted on social media.

Liberty star Breanna Stewart won the regular-season MVP award, with Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas as the first runner-up. Wilson finished in third in one of the closest MVP votes in league history. Just 13 points separated Stewart and Wilson in the final tally.

NBA player Ja Morant posted on social media after the Aces’ title win, writing: “We know how the awards should’ve went but … ring the mayor of SC.”

During the Aces’ postgame press conference, Alysha Clark and other Aces players used their time in front of the press to try and get the culprit to come forward. A national panel of 60 sportswriters and broadcasters vote on the award.

“Who put A’ja in fourth place for MVP? C’mon, now’s the time,” Clark asked, which sent the room into chaos. “I just wanna know. … Everybody wants to know. No shame.”

Former WNBA Rookie of the Year Rhyne Howard also voiced her support for Wilson, posting a screenshot that read: “Whoever voted A’ja 4th needs to do a public apology at the parade.”

Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson won the matchup of MVPs in the 2023 WNBA Finals over her New York Liberty counterpart Breanna Stewart.

Wilson won the Finals MVP award in the process. Her trophy haul should provide ample consolation for her loss to Stewart in the voting for the regular-season MVP award.

Of course, some might say Wilson deserved the 2023 WNBA MVP award over Stewart in the first place – including Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon, who has been vocal from the start about the snub. But Wilson, who did win the 2022 MVP award, set herself apart throughout the championship series, leading the Aces to a 3-1 win over the Liberty.

In the 2023 playoffs, Wilson averaged 23.8 points and 11.8 rebounds per game, beating out her New York Liberty counterpart. Stewart averaged 18.4 points and 10.2 rebounds, and through 10 postseason games shot just 35.8% from the field.

Stewart made 42.1% of her shots in Game 1 against the Aces, but in Game 2 was held to just 35.3% shooting. In the final game of the series, she shot 17.6% from the field and scored just 10 points. She went 67-187 in the playoffs, which is not what the Liberty needed from their star player.

Stewart also struggled with 3-point shooting, making just 19.6% of her shots from behind the arc in the postseason compared to 35.5% in the regular season. She sunk just nine 3-pointers out of 46 attempts in the playoffs.

And on Wednesday, New York put the ball in her hands for the game-winning shot — but she was denied by Alysha Clark. Still, if you ask head coach Sandy Brondello, the decision to put the ball in Stewart’s hands is one she’d made again.

“I put the ball in the hands of the MVP because we trust her. And it just didn’t work out today,” Brondello said. “It ended up with Breanna at the end, so it was just her trying to make a play from there. So, I [would] still do it again. That’s the right call.”

Stewart’s 10 points in the series-ending loss were the fewest she had scored in a game in the 2023 postseason.

“I think they would just throw whatever defense they had at us and make sure it was ugly,” Stewart said. “Sometimes we lost our flow and our ball movement, but [we were] confident behind all the shots that we got, and they just didn’t go in.”

Wilson, meanwhile, nearly doubled Stewart’s shooting percentages in the playoffs, going 82-for-148 from the floor. She shot 55.4% through nine playoff games.

With those numbers, Wilson finishes the playoffs having put together her best postseason to date. Last year, she averaged 20.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 55.2% shooting in the playoffs en route to the Aces’ first title – all career bests. She improved in all three categories this season.

Comparatively, this is one of the worst postseasons of Stewart’s career. She only averaged below 40% shooting in the playoffs one other time – in 2017, when the Seattle Storm were eliminated after one game. The only other time she’s been below 50% came in 2018, when Seattle played eight games en route to winning the title.

Her 19.6% 3-point shooting is particularly glaring, as she had never averaged below 40% in the playoffs, and averaged 50% or better in four out of the five previous postseasons in which she has played.