The debate is over. On Thursday, A’ja Wilson was named the 2026 WNBA MVP, becoming the first player in league history to win the award three years in a row — and stretching her record total to five MVPs overall.

Wilson, 30, collected 65 of the 74 first-place votes and 713 total points from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters. Minnesota rookie Olivia Miles finished a distant second with 442 points, followed by Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell (287), Caitlin Clark (212), and Breanna Stewart (171).

No other WNBA player has more than three MVPs. Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Lauren Jackson each won three; Wilson now owns five, adding to the trophies she lifted in 2020 and 2022.

The season she put together made the vote a formality. Wilson captured her third straight scoring title at 26.2 points per game while shooting 52.7 percent from the field and 40.4 percent from three — a 25-50-40 combination no WNBA player had ever produced. She added 9.4 rebounds, a career-best 3.2 assists, and 1.9 blocks per game, leading the league in blocks for the fifth time in six seasons.

She did it all while playing through the back problems that kept her off Team USA at the FIBA World Cup this summer, appearing in 41 games for a Las Vegas team that finished 31-13 and took the No. 3 seed.

The award arrives with awkward timing. The defending champion Aces are down 2-0 to the Golden State Valkyries in the best-of-five semifinals, one loss from elimination. But Thursday belonged to Wilson, who said the trophy brought heavier emotions than any before it.