The Aces jumped into a pile at half court, their cheers cutting through the stunned silence of a shocked Barclays Center. Las Vegas had sent the Liberty packing, defeating the home team 70–69 to clinch back-to-back WNBA titles. There was no confetti or celebratory music, but the Aces created a party of their own, dancing as they were presented with the league trophy, cutting through a smattering of boos—a parting gift from New York.
In commissioner Cathy Engelbert presenting Las Vegas with its hardware for the second year in a row, the WNBA had crowned its latest dynasty. Their back-to-back titles have catapulted the Aces to rarified air, joining the Comets and Sparks as the only teams to win consecutive WNBA championships. Houston hoisted the trophy in the W’s inaugural four years, starting in 1997, before Los Angeles ended its reign, topping the league in 2001 and ’02. Now 21 years later, Las Vegas has written itself into WNBA lore, emerging from the 2023 Finals not just as the definitive superteam, but as a group worthy of historical designation.
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“At the end of the day, history, records, it’s all going to be broken at some point. So, I think this is a special group,” said Aces coach Becky Hammon. “And they need to be in a lot of conversations.”
It’s not just that the Aces defended their title, (a task alone deserving of praise) but it's how Hammon’s team charged to their second championship: toppling a supersized Liberty squad littered with talent, including two MVPs (one former and one reigning) and a handful of former WNBA champions. And Las Vegas slayed the proverbial dragon without two of its starters, as Chelsea Gray and Kiah Stokes both sustained foot injuries in Game 3, sidelining them for Game 4. In their absence, Hammon had to rely on her reserves, with Alysha Clark and Cayla George finishing with 10 and 11 points, respectively. They were helped over the line by A’ja Wilson, who put up 24 points and pulled down 16 boards.
“I made up a defense,” Hammon admitted after the win, applauding her side’s ability to execute on the fly, expanding on the plan she laid out in the pregame press conference. “We’re going to be throwing the kitchen sink at them. See what sticks. See what works. We’re doing some stuff we’ve never done.” Hammon’s risk paid off, with her team trusting the process and sticking together as the group had all year long.
Las Vegas occupied a unique role this WNBA season. The Aces were the reigning champions, welcoming one of the league’s most accomplished players, Candace Parker, into its already stacked title-clinching lineup. They were an offensive juggernaut. A superteam—although that moniker is debated. And Hammon’s squad was a title favorite, but not necessarily considered inevitable despite ending the regular season atop the standings with a 34–6 record. In hindsight perhaps it was a mistake not to see the Aces’ 2023 championship as predestined.
If there was any question about Las Vegas’s stamina, that’s due to a late-summer stretch that etched some blemishes on the team’s near-perfect résumé. August brought about a challenging period, with the Aces falling to the Liberty twice, including losing out on the Commissioner’s Cup to its East Coast rival. Concerns bubbled up about the Aces’ momentum heading into the postseason, but coach Hammon actually credits this hiccup to her team’s playoff success.
“Every team should have a rough stretch,” said Hammon. “You shouldn't go through the season just skipping along. You should hit a rough patch and when you hit the rough patches you get to see what you’re made of. And I know what my team is made of.”
The Aces are the type of team that competes with something to prove, even as reigning champs. They often play with a chip on their shoulder, and that ethos was only hardened after Wilson finished third in WNBA MVP voting behind the Sun’s Alyssa Thomas and the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart, who took home the award. A rogue fourth-place vote gave credence to the idea that Wilson was being underestimated. It didn’t go unnoticed by the Aces either, with Clark starting an interrogation in the press conference after her team’s Finals win, demanding to finally know the culprit for the insulting aberration.
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Wilson finished the 2023 regular season averaging 22.8 points and 9.5 rebounds, shooting 55.7% from the field. She also topped the league in efficiency and tied the WNBA’s single-game record, dropping 53 points during an August road matchup against the Dream. She got to the line more than any other player, causing tons of problems for other teams around the basketball. "Third in MVP voting? O.K. Rest on that. It's a joke. She’s been off-the-charts efficient,” Hammon said.
The Finals offered Wilson an opportunity to correct the record. Finishing the series averaging 21.3 points and 12.5 rebounds with 50% shooting, Wilson earned Finals MVP. It wasn’t just her impact on the stat sheet that shifted the series, or merited the award. The 27-year-old has established herself as the heart, grit and engine behind this championship team, willing the Aces past the Liberty in a treacherous Game 4. If the Aces are being discussed in historic terms, then Wilson deserves the same lofty consideration. “She’s just been doing what she’s doing all season,” said Clark. “And so to be able to be here on the biggest stage and show up the way she showed up just speaks to who she is as a player, what she means to this team, what she means for this franchise.”
“To be up here,” said Wilson, “this one was special because so many people counted us out.” It isn’t just the snubs that helped to build Las Vegas’s underdog, counted-out mythology. A series of injuries added to the Aces’ dogged mentality, setbacks the team knew they had to overcome. Parker underwent surgery for a fractured foot in July after appearing in 18 games with Las Vegas, before assuming a new role as a veteran support on the bench. What would this team have looked like with the seven-time All-Star as an option on the floor? It’s scary to contemplate. Gray’s Game 4 absence was major, too, as the squad was forced to charge through a title-clinching game without its floor general and 2022 Finals MVP.
Other forms of adversity cited by the group, like the lawsuit filed against the team by former player Dearica Hamby and Riquna Williams’s arrest, are less straightforward, and more complicated, but have been used as fuel nonetheless. “We went from darlings to villains real quick,” said Hammon. Whatever form the perceived slights or hurdles have taken, the team’s defiant kindling has been a powerful propellent on the court and it's bonded the Aces as a unit.
“This team has had a thousand opportunities to fall apart…You name it we’ve gone through it this year,” said Hammon. “And all this team has done is dig in deeper with each other, dig in deeper with each other. You can’t crack this group.”
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There was plenty of talk about X-factors ahead of the Finals. Which player would show up? Who could pull their side across the finish line? The Aces’ difference maker didn’t necessarily turn out to be a single player, but rather the team’s chemistry. Gray ran the floor with precision in Games 1 and 2, Young and Plum went off beyond the arc and Wilson—well Wilson did it all—while the bench stepped up when called upon. The Aces were in sync.
This group knows what it takes to lift a trophy—together. It has been there before—together. New York had experienced players and champions on its roster, but the Liberty had never charged to a title as a team. Las Vegas’s propensity to turn toward each other rather than fracture is a point of pride for the squad, and is intimidating to go up against. “The character of this team and their absolute buy-in to the person to their left or right’s success is authentic and it’s tough to deal with,” said Hammon.
This tight-knit group isn’t going anywhere either. Wilson, Plum, Young and Gray will all return to Las Vegas next year, with the Aces’ core four under contract. And if their absolutely dominant 2023 championship run is any indication, they won’t be content with the two trophies in their cabinet. They’ll also be eager to prove any remaining doubters—although that’s hard to envision now—wrong. If the dynasty talk is loud now, it’s only about to get louder.
