“Yeah, a lot of good things are happening. Yeah, we’re grateful in this space, in a game that’s growing, but it’s like, ‘Damn, at what cost? What are we doing?'”
On a September morning after her Aces won in Seattle, A’ja Wilson walks inside a production studio a few miles south of Las Vegas, wearing her bonnet, sweats and Crocs, before a trio of hair and makeup assistants swarms her to get her ready for a photo shoot. An hour later, as she waits for the shoot to begin, she opens up about everything that is swirling around her.
Wilson has had one of the best seasons in basketball history: an Olympic gold medal, the single-season WNBA points record, the single-season rebounding record and her third MVP, this one unanimous. Despite her greatness, her Aces haven’t looked like themselves for most of the season as they attempt a three-peat. Injuries, controversies and uncharacteristic losses landed them as the fourth seed in this year’s playoffs, where they now find themselves in a two-game hole in their best-of-five semifinal series against the Liberty, with Game 3 on Friday night.
This year’s struggles have come during a historic season that has earned the league unprecedented viewership and attention. But the players, including Wilson and her peers, have reported a rise in racist and disrespectful behavior from fans.
In turn, Wilson has deleted social media from her phone and has accepted that everyone might not appreciate her talent. We spoke about this and more throughout two conversations in August and September, covering how this season has affected her and how her life story has prepared her for this moment, as she cements her status as one of the greatest to ever do it.
The interviews have been edited for clarity.
“This year just has really shown — blatantly — that you really have to work your ass off in order for people just to even look at you.” Sage East for ESPN
In your locker room speech that went viral, you said it has been difficult to be yourself this season. What did you mean by that? I mean for us, as Black women, we grew up, a lot of time, with our parents telling us, “You got to work 10 times as hard just to get a foot in the door, let alone to stand out.” I felt that more this year than ever. Throughout the whole course of my career, yes, I’ve had times where I’m like, “Dang, this is hard. This is weird. I don’t like it. It’s uncomfortable.” But at the same time, I’ll work through it. This year just has really shown — blatantly — that you really have to work your ass off in order for people just to even look at you. No matter how well you’re doing, there’s always a certain amount of people that’s going to try to downgrade you and sweep you under the rug.
This year is more the year that I’ve seen anyone call my game boring than it’s ever been. I’m like, “OK, cool, whatever.” You have some people that’s like, “Oh, she’s having the best season of her life,” and you have some people that’s like, “Nah, I don’t even like it.” So, you use that in some senses, and it can get to you. It can get exhausting having to show up every single day and people may not show you the worth that you want. But at the same time, if I know my worth, I don’t pay that any mind. It was just a vulnerable moment for me to let my teammates know that on a lot of days where I don’t feel myself, I could come to the gym and count on them. They changed my whole perspective on who I am in life.
Why do you like escape rooms so much? Who told you about escape rooms? That’s crazy.
It’s not important who told me about the escape rooms! I heard you really jack the escape rooms, though. I am lit at escape rooms. I love it because it makes me think. Literally, in escape rooms, I feel like everything is legit a clue, and I love that. Sometimes I kind of translate it over into my life where it’s little things where I’m like, “What is God telling me? What is he trying to show me?” I just love it because you just get different personalities in a room and you figure out people’s strengths and weaknesses and you use that. For instance, my mother, we took her to one, and she was awful. We were like, you know what? You’re going to let us know how much time is going by. She was good at that. She’s very punctual. She’s someone that’s going to make sure you keep in check. Time watch is the perfect job for her. Versus my dad who is always three clues ahead. I love them because it really brings out a lot of people’s strengths and at the same time, it really gets your mind going. I’m a huge fan. Call me a nerd, but I love it.
What helps you relax during the season — besides your dogs? I was about to say my puppies. I’m really chill. I can’t really say what I really want to say. [Laughs] No, but when it comes to relaxing, I definitely just disconnect myself from the game. I really don’t watch it. Anytime you’re at my house, I’m probably having cartoons on because I’m just tired of seeing humans. I’m tired of hearing humans. So, sometimes animation really helps me just kind of chill in a sense. I love cartoons. I love a good murder show — just disconnecting from the game. I don’t really think about it. I don’t watch it enough so I can kind of miss it a little bit.
Favorite cartoon? Favorite murder show right now? My favorite murder show would have to be (“American Murder: Laci Peterson”) on Netflix. I think her husband did it and will forever think her husband did it. And my favorite cartoon right now, I got to go with “The Boondocks.”
It’s a classic. “The Boondocks,” heavy.
Did you do escape rooms when you played in Indiana? Yes, I did do that. Three escape rooms.
Three?! Two in one day. [Laughs]
Between the games or before the first game? Yeah, between the games.
What were the escape rooms like in Indiana? It is pretty cool. The more escape rooms you do, the more you see which cities really dive into storytelling. I think Indiana did a great job. We did a crime-stopping one, a spaceship one, and the other was like a haunted mansion. These were really fun. They made us think. I was actually surprised that Indiana had good escape rooms.
On Sept. 15, Wilson became the first WNBA player to score 1,000 points in a season. Sage East for ESPN
It’s tough to ignore social media, but you’ve been through a lot of this before. How did you approach pressure this season when it felt like it was the worst it’s been? Cut my phone off. Just disconnect from social. I delete my socials and I wake up, I’m like, “Dang, my day is actually going pretty smoothly.” I’m more attentive. I’m more in tune with my life — my real actual life.
That’s the beautiful thing about social media is that it can go away if you just really don’t pay it any mind. It’s kind of like a plant in water. It’s going to grow. It’s going to consume you. But if not, it dies. And then it goes away. In some cases, I really kind of stayed off of social just to protect my mental because I’m not about to fight with computer warriors. I’m not about to be there. I’ll be there all day. When it came to pressure, I would just disconnect myself. I had two of my best friends come out one weekend and I think that was probably the best weekend and time that they could have came out. They’re two of my friends that don’t play basketball. They allowed me to be A’ja and not the girl in a uniform. That’s how I handle pressures — just kind of escape it. Disconnecting from it.
The WNBA has taken off the past few years, but it’s weird to see it this year. It feels like a lot of Black women in the league have been criticized. Has that been a downer? It really has, in my sense, because it feels like, it’s not like we’re timid, but it’s like you don’t want us to do stuff, you just don’t want to hear the noise. It strips us from the genuine [happiness] and pureness and love of the game. Just like, “I don’t even want to go down this road.” I know it’s going to be some idiotic person that’s going to talk crazy and then I have to continue to take the high road. That gets exhausting. That’s something that I’ve really seen this year that I’ve never seen before. It’s just like, damned, if you do, damned if you don’t. And you constantly have to live in that life for four months and over time it’s just, “Ugh.” I dreaded being in Indiana, not because it was like the city or nothing, it was just like, I just don’t want no s— to pop off.
It’s like that feeling of constantly having to have that guard up, constantly having to just protect yourself and being ready to take the high road. Living like that sucks, but it’s something that you have to continue to do. It’s kind of like code-switching to putting that mask on. You just gotta do it. This year we see it more than ever and it sucks and I hope it just dies down. We’re starting to lose the beauty of the game of basketball. That’s what I hate the most about it. You’re always going to have those barbershop talks. Yeah, whatever, just keep it the game. But in the world that we’re in, they just can’t do that. Maybe because it’s an election year, I don’t know. These folks going crazy.
Who have you been able to rely on the most, or who has been a confidant who you actually work with? Probably Sydney Colson. Everybody laughs at our relationship. That’s the big sister that I never wanted. I’m just like, every day is annoying as hell, but that’s our relationship. We love on each other. We can have the real conversation. She could check me and be like, “Yo, you’re the greatest, so act that way, move that way and we are going to be behind you.”
