Fever Coach Stephanie White Leaves No Doubt About the WNBA’s Best Player
There's a case to be made that Las Vegas Aces star forward A'ja Wilson is already the greatest women's basketball player of all time, despite the fact that she's still not even 30 years old.
Wilson just concluded a 2025 campaign that saw her win her third WNBA championship, her fourth league MVP (and second consecutive), and the 2025 Co-Defensive Player of the Year Award (which is her third time winning). She has accomplished everything there is to accomplish in the sport and has left an indelible mark on women's basketball.
Wilson has been showered with accolades since the WNBA season ended, including being named the Time 2025 Athlete of the Year and The Sporting News 2025 Female Athlete of the Year, the latter of which was announced on December 16.
Stephanie White Praises 'Best Player in the World' A'ja Wilson
Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White had to worry about defending Wilson during the 2025 WNBA Semifinals, which the Fever narrowly lost in five games. But now that the season is over, White can enjoy and articulate Wilson's greatness, which she did when speaking with Sporting News' Mike Decourcy for a December 16 article.
“No. 1, it’s her skill set: Her ability to knock down jumpers, to attack you off the bounce, score high-degree-of-difficult shots, fadeaways. She has such a high release point,” White said of Wilson. “It’s the way Becky uses her, too, when they invert actions, bring her off of screens. You guard her with a post player, try to get length and size, and they’re not used to defending off of pin-downs and pin-aways, those kinds of things. Her IQ and her activity – all of those things make her hard to guard.
"Just like any great player, you’re not going to stop them. You just want to make them make the toughest shot possible for 40 minutes," White continued.
Stephanie White speaking about A’ja abilities and greatness ‼️ https://t.co/hyEL1UYbaY pic.twitter.com/rT2e9vZqUn
— A’jack x 12 🖤 (@thereal__zee) December 16, 2025
“The thing that’s impressed me most is just the way that her game has evolved,” White continued. “She was just such a dominant low-block player. You had to put one player behind her and one in front, try to sandwich her and keep her from getting the ball. She’s developed perimeter and face-up skills to just become the best player in the world.
"She has an intensity level about her, a discipline about the way she does things. You don’t often see players who don’t play in the offseason come back and have the same rhythm, timing. It’s like she hasn’t lost anything. That’s a tribute to how she works in the offseason," White added.
“You see greatness, the best in the world, someone who’s won multiple championships and is still hungry – multiple championships and MVPs – and is still hungry, still not satisfied.”
Fever fans are hoping that another player who wears No. 22 can be the WNBA's best player in the near future.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the Indiana Fever and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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