A'ja Wilson won her record fifth WNBA MVP award on Thursday, taking the league's top individual honor after receiving 65 of 74 first-place votes. It was a clear finish at the top of the ballot, even in a year when another star season helped shape the conversation around the award.
The WNBA announced the result on Thursday, and the voting showed a wide gap between Wilson and the rest of the field. Wilson finished with 442 points, while Olivia Miles was second with 287 points, Kelsey Mitchell was third, and Caitlin Clark placed fourth. Wilson also received six second-place votes, while the ballot breakdown included 20 third-place votes, 16 fourth-place votes and 12 fifth-place votes across the full voting panel.
A rare vote split in a historic race
What made this year unusual was not just Wilson's win, but the way the ballot reflected a split view of the season. Clark received one first-place vote, yet 19 voters left her off their ballots entirely. That detail stood out because Clark's season was still historic by standard measures, even if it did not end with an MVP trophy.
Clark's statistical resume included 22.3 points per game and 8.3 assists per game, and she also produced some of the biggest individual lines of the year. On July 17, she scored 45 points and added 10 assists against Seattle, one of the defining performances of the season. Her overall production came in a year when the league continued to debate how to weigh team success, individual numbers and overall impact in MVP voting.
What Wilson's win says about the race
Wilson's fifth MVP is another reminder of how difficult it is to separate herself from the field when she is healthy and producing at a high level. The vote totals show a decisive result, but they also show that Clark's season was impossible to ignore. In a race like this, both things can be true: Wilson was the clear winner, and Clark's rookie campaign still forced serious attention.
Clark also handled the spotlight throughout the season, including the kind of attention that comes with traveling to opposing arenas. As she put it, she enjoys hostile WNBA road crowds, a mindset that fit the intensity surrounding her first professional season.
For Wilson, the award adds another major line to a growing legacy. For Clark, the fourth-place finish does not erase the significance of what she accomplished. Instead, it underscores how strong the top end of the WNBA was this season, and why this MVP race drew so much attention from the start.
