By Anthony Varriano

Many of you won’t even get to this first sentence. You’ll be so full of misogynistic hate that I would dare compare A’ja Wilson to Michael Jordan, Victor Wembanyama or any man who’s played professional basketball that you won’t bother reading before leaving a hateful comment. Well, I’m not doing that. I’m comparing A’ja to her peers, and MJ and Wemby to theirs. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me explain why Wemby should wanna to be like A’ja—not like Mike.

Victor Wembanyama often looks like I did playing in my bedroom with a miniature ball and hoop hung upon my six-foot closet doors. The game has never seemed so unfair. Early in his career, MJ also played above the rim, but Wemby is perpetually playing in that airspace. Bonafide ball knowers everywhere are saying we’ve never seen anything in the game like Wemby, and that he’s gonna win Most Valuable Player (MVP) and Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) awards every season when healthy. But A’ja’s done that twice already. No NBA player, not even MJ, can say that. 

Mike was a good defender, but he was never the best defender on his own team – even when he won his lone DPOY award. MJ needed official scorekeepers to pad his steal stats that season, as Pablo Torre found out, so even His Airness wasn’t what A’ja was and, frankly, still is.

Cheryl Swoopes is the only other pro baller to win DPOY and MVP in two separate seasons, but A’ja’s still in her prime and still the most dominant player on both ends of the floor. Also, A’ja’s the only WNBA player to win DPOY, MVP, Finals MVP and a championship in the same season. Hakeem Olajuwon is the only other basketball player to accomplish that feat, but he did so while MJ was playing baseball. 

Giannis Antetokounmpo might have the most legitimate claim to being the best offensive and defensive player for an entire NBA season since the merger in 1976. And if you’re wondering about Wilt Chamberlain, he won his last MVP in 1968 but still made the NBA All-Defensive First Team the last two years of his career. He was certainly the best offensive and defensive player in the game as late as the 1967-68 season, when he averaged more than 24 points, almost 24 rebounds and nearly nine assists per game. Blocks weren’t a recorded statistic until his final season in 1972-73. He averaged 5.4 per game.

Wilt’s an unfair expectation for Wemby given who Chamberlain was playing against and how the game was played prior to the advent of the 3-point line. The NBA was almost entirely white when Wilt debuted in 1959, and the number of Black players per team continued to be limited by colluding owners until the final few years of his career. Most NBA players held jobs in the offseason, and the best athletes weren’t considering professional basketball as a viable career given the racial discrimination and a lack of interest in the league that persisted for two decades.

While A’ja doesn’t have as many peers as Wemby and MJ given the 12-team league that’s grown to 15 during her tenure, that shouldn’t diminish her accomplishments. It’s not about how many players you’re better than; it’s about how much better you are than the next best. The dominance of Olajuwon, MJ and Giannis in the seasons they won MVP and DPOY pales in comparison to the distance A’ja has put between herself and the rest of the WNBA. So why shouldn’t Wemby aspire to be like A’ja instead of Mike given their shared skillsets and relative dominance of their peers on both ends of the floor? I asked Las Vegas Aces head coach and former Spurs assistant Becky Hammon that very question.

“I don’t think anybody should set a ceiling for Victor except for Victor. He’s going to be as good as he wants to be. He’s got all the physical tools, and you know, makes all the right pro decisions, away from the court as well, so…I don’t think there’s going to be much he can’t do by the time it’s all said and done,” Hammon said. “He’s still very young, obviously, and I know he’s a worker, so all the work he puts in is just going to continue to make him great…you do kind of let them become what they become, and I know he’s probably going to be the best version of himself, and you know, he’s not even in his prime years yet.”

Wembanyama will be 23 in January, and even if his career is shortened by injuries typical of players his size, he could still threaten MJ’s six championship rings. Hell, if he wins these NBA Finals, it’s at least possible for him to catch MJ by the time he’s as old as Jordan was when he won his first. But the best basketball player of all time isn’t necessarily the winningest player of all time; otherwise, Bill Russell would be more highly regarded despite three of his five MVPs coming in seasons he failed to lead the league in a single statistical category. LeBron James eclipsed MJ and anyone else in that respect, given his ability to play every position at an elite level on both ends of the floor. With or without the championships, LeBron is objectively the best ever player of basketball, and A’ja is already the best to ever play the women’s game.

Like LeBron, both A’ja and Wemby can defend all five positions and run the point or play in the post on offense. Both demand double-teams and are excellent passing post players. Both alter shots at historic rates, and both force turnovers through blocks and steals. Both are a threat from three-point range, and both are excellent free-throw shooters. Both are exceptional team leaders, and both have the potential to be the best all-time, all-around players in their respective leagues. 

I know both A’ja and Wemby would always take championships over individual accolades, but you can only control what you can control. The extent to which A’ja and Wemby can control the game on both ends is unprecedented in the history of their respective leagues, so if Wemby wants to be the best ever to play the game of basketball, he should aspire to be like A’ja and attempt to walk her path.