A’ja Wilson flattened an arena staffer on her way out of the tunnel, stopped the entire pregame walkout to make sure she was alright, and then went out and dropped 34 like the collision personally offended her.
It’s the same ten seconds, not two separate stories, and it’s a more honest MVP case than the box score alone. Leading the Las Vegas Aces out for Thursday’s regular-season finale at Phoenix, Wilson was moving at full sprint when a staffer picked the worst possible second to peek through the entrance curtain. A four-time MVP does not stop on a dime.
The staffer went down anyway.
Wilson stopped completely, cut her own walkout short, and made sure the woman was okay before she moved another step. The staffer got up under her own power. The team walked to the court like nothing had happened, because by then, nothing had.
Then Wilson went out and put up 34 points, 10 rebounds, and 16-for-28 shooting in a 100-82 win over the Phoenix Mercury, locking the Aces into the No. 3 seed. She treated the finale like it had personally wronged her, and after that collision, maybe it had.
The stat line is why the clip cracked two million views.
The ten seconds before it are why the A’ja Wilson tunnel collision has more staying power than a normal blowout highlight. Person first, box score second, and the box score still ends up looking like a typo.
Wilson’s got four MVPs and two Finals MVPs already, and she’s chasing a fourth championship with Vegas this postseason. A player with nothing left to prove doesn’t usually treat a regular-season blowout like personal business, and she doesn’t usually stop mid-sprint for someone the cameras weren’t even pointed at.
I’ll admit the internet had more fun with the A’ja Wilson tunnel collision than I did. Sports commentator Joshua Sanchez posted the clip and asked a simple question that broke containment completely:
https://twitter.com/jnsanchez/status/2103441343062122994
“Block or charge” is genuinely funny, and the feet-set arguments about a hallway that isn’t part of the Mercury’s actual basketball court are a good bit. Fans are out here debating whether the tunnel has its own right-of-way rules, like a curtain peek is a real call in a real game. I’m not going to pretend the joke isn’t working just because I’d rather people notice the part where a four-time MVP stopped mid-sprint to check on a stranger.
That said, the jokes only work because nobody actually got hurt. Swap the outcome and this is a very different article, and Wilson clearly understood that in real time even if the internet’s still doing the bit.
The Aces are already rewriting what a WNBA season is supposed to look like, and Wilson’s building her Player of the Month case one tunnel collision at a time. They play the Indiana Fever in two days.
Somebody warn the tunnel.
