Aces’ A’ja Wilson sets WNBA single-season rebounding record

SEATTLE — With seven rebounds in Tuesday’s 85-72 win over the Seattle Storm, A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces surpassed injured Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese for the WNBA’s single-season rebounding record.

Last week, Wilson broke the WNBA’s single-season scoring record, and on Sunday she became the  first player in league history to reach 1,000 points in a single season. 

“It’s a blessing,” Wilson said. “This league is tough, so if my name can be in the record books in some sort of way, it’s a blessing. So that’s cool.”

Compared to the attention on her scoring record, Wilson was surprised when informed during postgame interviews that she had set the rebounding mark, leading to a humorous back-and-forth exchange with Aces coach Becky Hammon.

“No, she didn’t know,” Hammon joked. “You can tell.”

“Only because I don’t hunt rebounds, so it’s not something that’s always on my mind,” Wilson replied.

“She doesn’t hunt rebounds,” Hammon countered. “She just has 13 of them all the time.”

“I’m 6-foot-4 and I’m around the basket; I hope I can grab a couple rebounds for my team,” Wilson concluded. “But when it comes to just getting them to get them, I’m not focused on that. I’m focused on putting the ball in the hoop.”

Reese’s rebounding record, set Sept. 1, lasted less than three weeks. She played only two more games before suffering a wrist fracture that ended her rookie WNBA season. Reese averaged 13.1 rebounds per game, compared to a career-high 11.9 for Wilson, who had never previously averaged double-figure rebounds.

Hammon offered an example of how Wilson excels on the glass despite not focusing on rebounding.

“Earlier in the year,” Hammon recalled, “it was midway through the third and I looked at her and said, ‘A’ja, you have two rebounds.’ She said ‘OK.’ In the next minute and a half, I think she had seven. If you remind her — oh hey, the other half of your job is to freaking rebound — and then she’ll be like, ‘OK, I got you.'”

Las Vegas’ win locked Seattle into the No. 5 seed in the playoffs, which begin Sunday, and assured the Aces home-court advantage in the first round as they look to defend their back-to-back league championships.

Las Vegas, currently seeded fourth, could move up to No. 3 on Thursday’s final day of the regular season if the Aces beat the Dallas Wings and the Connecticut Sun lose to the Sky.

Don’t expect Wilson to be watching the scoreboard.

“I don’t care what seed we are,” she said. “It would be nice to just like have a higher seed, play at home, cool, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a whole new basketball that you get a chance to play when it comes to playoffs, and it doesn’t matter what number is by your team’s name. You’ve just got to go out there and start playing the best basketball, and I think that’s what we’re trying to strive to.”

After losing four of its first six games after the Olympic break, Las Vegas has gone 8-1 in its past nine. The only loss in that span came at the  New York Liberty, a game Wilson missed because of an ankle injury.