Let’s list all of the 5x MVPs in WNBA/NBA history:

Talk about rare air!

🎉 Happy birthday LJ Cryer, Kenny Anderson, and Jerian Grant! 🎉

5-time! 5 time! 5 time!

Enjoyers, this is true greatness in front of our very eyes. A’ja Wilson claims her 5th Kia WNBA MVP honor, becoming the first woman in WNBA history to win the award three years in a row (2024, 2025, and 2026).

Wilson led the Aces to the 3-seed and a 31-13 record, living in all areas of the box score:

26.2 PPG, 9.4 RPG, 3.2 APG, 1.4 SPG, 1.9 BPG

She received 65 of 74 first-place votes, making this decision an easy one to make. The Lynx’s rookie sensation Olivia Miles finished a distant second in voting (6/74 first-place votes), and Kelsey Mitchell of the Fever finished third (2/74 first-place votes).

To put this award into context, Cynthia Cooper is the only other player to go back-to-back in 1997 and 1998. In the NBA the only three-peat MVPs were Larry Bird (1984, 1985, 1986), Wilt Chamberlain (1966, 1967, 1968), and Bill Russell (1961, 1962, 1963).

Sometimes you need to pause for a moment and recognize the greatness in front of us. This is one of those moments.

Congrats, G’OAT!

Atlanta is now one win away from their first trip to the WNBA Finals since 2013, as they claim another win over the NY Liberty. A game that saw 17 lead changes, 8 ties, and some drama to end the night.

The first half of the night was owned by Breanna Stewart (35 PTS, 11 REB, 6 AST), who scored 25 of her points in the first half on 8/9 shooting.

For the Dream, Jordin Canada (23 PTS, 5 REB, 8 AST) was all over the floor Wednesday night from guarding on the perimeter to going 3/6 from three herself. Canada is a 26% career three-point shooter, but in his postseason is up to 48% on ~6 attempts per game. 🔥

We got to see another showdown of the bigs between Angel Reese (23 PTS, 7 REB), and Jonquel Jones (21 PTS, 8 REB, 4 BLK) battling on the block.

We also got to see role players step up when their teams needed them the most. 🇦🇺 Isobel Borlase’s (11 PTS, 4 REB, 3/5 3PT) presence partially made up for the missing Allisha Gray for the Dream. 🇫🇷 Marine Fauthoux (20 PTS, 6 REB, 4 AST, 8/10 FG) kept the Liberty in the game for most of the second half, hitting a massive three to extend the game into OT.

In a back-and-forth overtime period Angel Reese hit 2 clutch free throws to put ATL up 3, with just over 4 seconds left. The Liberty elected to not use their final timeout to advance the ball down the court, which instead led to an unsuccessful heave as time expired.

In the post-game, Breanna Stewart mentioned that the officials told the team that they didn’t have any timeouts left, which did not end up being the case.

Regardless, the 8-seed Liberty find themselves staring down the barrel of a 2-0 deficit, and will have a tough mountain to climb to fight their way back to another Finals appearance.

Ballhalla might be the hottest spot on the planet right now!

The Chase Center was going WILD for Golden State Wednesday night as they put the pressure on the defending champions, the Las Vegas Aces.

The Valks were up as much as 17 in the 3rd quarter in this one, thanks to stellar performances from 🇫🇷 Gabby Williams (20 PTS, 5 REB), and former Ace Tiffany Hayes (21 PTS) who provided a spark off the bench. I still have Kaitlyn Chen’s hesi in my nightmares.

The Aces never go out lightly, especially with 5x MVP A’ja Wilson (24 PTS, 7 REB) and Chelsea Gray (19 PTS, 6 AST) lingering. The Aces eventually stormed their way back in the fourth to go up 2 with 1:30 left.

Veronica Burton hit a deep three (her only made bucket of the night) to put the Valks up 3 with 40 seconds to go, sending Ballhalla and the Valks bench into a frenzy!

The final 40 seconds turned into a foul-off to see who would miss first. However, a forced missed free throw play ran to perfection by Jackie Young ended with Kiah Stokes blocking the game-tying layup attempt from Chelsea Gray to seal the win for the Valks.

This was a signature win for the Valks, who are just 1 win away from making the WNBA Finals in their second season as a WNBA franchise. Let’s not forget that Golden State was the first WNBA expansion franchise to make the playoffs in their first season.

No team in WNBA History has ever come back from a 2-0 deficit in a 5-game series. Now the 2024 and 2025 WNBA Champs will look to be the first teams to pull it off.

It’s been 472 days since Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals, where Tyrese Haliburton went down with an Achilles injury. What better place to make your return than on your college grounds.

The Pacers opened up their pre-season with a 123-112 win over the Timberwolves at the Hilton Coliseum at Iowa State University.

Prior to the game, Haliburton bought all the tickets for ISU’s student section, and had the university hold a lottery for students to attend the game for free.

Earlier this offseason, reports mentioned that Haliburton would not face any restrictions upon entering the season (source: Tyrese, himself).

On Wednesday night we got to see 16 minutes of Hali where he finished the night with a healthy 7 PTS, 6 AST, and 2 BLK.

We also got the opportunity to see LaMelo Ball (14 PTS, 7 AST), and Anthony Edwards (19 PTS, 4/5 3PT) pair up on an NBA floor for the second time!

Shifting from the stars, we got a show from Jay Huff (16 PTS, 4 REB, 4 AST) and Jarace Walker (7 PTS, 5 REB, 10 AST), who teamed up for this pretty dime after a self-pass off the glass! ⬇️

We also had the opportunity to see Dame Time in action, now back in Portland again!

Proven by his offseason highlights, the three ball has never left the arsenal of one of the NBA’s deadliest shooters, and that was on display Wednesday night, as Dame closed the night with 15 PTS and 3 3PM.

We got to see Dame start alongside new Blazer, Ja Morant (8 PTS, 5 AST), who made his preseason debut for Portland.

Last week, Blazers’ coach Micah Nori was on record saying that playing Ja Morant alongside Dame in the starting lineup did not make much analytical sense given the two are small guards without a strong defensive rap sheet.

It’ll be interesting to see the combination of lineups Nori comes up with in the regular season, given the pool of talented guards the Blazers are bringing into the season (let’s not forget about Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson), and the promising front court of Donovan Clingan and 🇧🇪 Toumani Camara.

Enjoyers! Thank you for making the Enjoy Newsletter a part of your Friday routine. We’ll be in touch Monday, when we’ll be even closer to regular season NBA action.

In the meantime, I need to start prepping for my fantasy basketball draft. My league does 10 categories which includes the traditional 9-cat format (PTS, FG%, FT%, 3PM, REB, AST, STL, BLK, TO), plus ejections as the final “bad-boy tax” category. I’ve led the league in ejections for the last two seasons…

Brian Shkabari