A’ja Wilson continues to soar above the WNBA this season, this time thanks to supporting players like NaLyssa Smith.
The tallest structure in Las Vegas is The Strat, standing at 1,114 feet it’s the tallest observation tower in the United States. Anyone who has seen it towering above surrounding buildings on the north side of the Strip have seen that its observation deck is propped up by a large support structure. That support provides the base for a restaurant, casino, amusement rides, and is topped by a spire rising even higher above the lights of other resorts.
A similar level of support is taking place further south on the Las Vegas Strip inside T-Mobile Arena this season for the city’s defending champions and their biggest star, A’ja Wilson, who is having yet another career year, but this time it is because there’s a supporting cast lifting her up as she soars to new heights.
It defies any sort of logic at this point. In 2025, the Aces won their third title in four years, and along the way, Wilson picked up her fourth Most Valuable Player and third Defensive Player of the Year awards. However, the reality is that A’ja is at it again; she was awarded the Western Conference Player of the Month in May, already has two Player of the Week nods, and currently leads the league in points per game and blocks per game. Simply put, she is as dominant now as she has been during her already Hall of Fame worthy career.
But if you look beyond the lights, the glam, the shimmer, and the neon (we’re taking this Las Vegas imagery as far as it can go), and dig into what makes A’ja’s tour de force churn in 2026, you find that her success is aided in part by another big on the Vegas roster, NaLyssa Smith.
She arrived in Las Vegas via a trade with the Dallas Wings in 2025, coming in exchange for a 2027 first round pick. A former #1 pick herself, NaLyssa entered the league in 2022 as the focal point for several unsuccessful Indiana Fever squads before landing in Dallas, where she struggled to breakthrough in a jumbled rotation of other talented players. She saw her shooting and rebounding stats completely fall off a cliff, and her play seemed to stagnate as well as the Wings struggled through the early part of a season that would not include a trip to the playoffs.
But fortunes changed in Vegas as they often do and after the midseason trade, Smith found herself riding high amid a new culture and opportunity to play alongside the most decorated big in the league. She had two double-doubles in her first three games for the Aces, as she saw her statistical output rebound from the career lows she had earlier in the season with Dallas.
This season, Smith has elevated her game even more. Her current PPG and RPG averages (11.3 and 6.6, respectively) are her highest since 2023, and she is currently shooting a career high 66.7% from the field. The eyeball test confirms what the numbers say as well. Watching any Aces game, you will see Smith roaming the baseline and paint on offense for a rebound and putback shot or to find space for an easy basket as the defense overcompensates to adjust to the stars elsewhere on the court for Las Vegas.
How does this career reassurance for NaLyssa Smith impact how A’ja Wilson operates during another potential MVP season for her? For one, Smith’s high motor and effort play in the paint allow for Wilson to operate more from the midrange and outside the arc. 18 games into this season, she is already approaching her 2025 totals for three point attempts and makes. The paint presence of Smith is also giving A’ja better looks inside the paint. According to Her Hoops Stats, which tracks shooting by different areas of the court, Wilson is currently shooting a career best 81 percent for shots in the restricted area of the paint.
We also see in real time how beneficial it is for Smith to have someone as dangerous as A’ja Wilson roaming outside the paint. Whenever a reigning MVP has the ball, the attention of the defense is going there, and Smith can fill the gaps that cause for easy looks for herself, as seen here in a sequence against the Portland Fire.
The success doesn’t just come from the attention that Wilson draws, however, as NaLyssa Smith remains a relentless force on the boards. She sits at 15th in the league in offensive rebounding, just behind Wilson, and is one player you will find regularly putting a body on an opponent to box out for a board.
NaLyssa Smith offensive rebound and putback layup #WNBA
— Danielle H (@danielleceltics.bsky.social) 2026-06-21T20:42:53.321Z
Ultimately, the success of the Aces comes down to more than these two players, but it is hard to ignore the impact that this duo has had on each other in the past year. In Smith, A’ja has found a reliable post partner who can allow her to work in new areas of the court. In Wilson, NaLyssa has found someone she can play off of in using her energy, instincts, and basketball intelligence to find success and reinvent her career.
A’ja Wilson was early to seeing the potential of this partnership, saying in a press conference after NaLyssa Smith’s first double-double as an Ace on July 7, 2025 in what now seems like a prophecy: “When you’re able to share and people are receiving it well, you can continue to pour into them and I hope that we continue to do that for her and let her know how valuable she is to this team.”
A player with that much value to the league’s most valuable player has to be worth quite a lot.
