CHELSEA GRAY HEARS A’ja Wilson talk. A lot. About trophies. About buckets. About blocks. About boards. But of the millions of words her outspoken teammate has uttered throughout their five seasons and two WNBA championships together as teammates on the Las Vegas Aces11 stand out to Gray.
She heard them in June, when nothing was going right for the Aces or Gray or Wilson. Las Vegas, among the preseason favorites to win the 2025 title, was hovering around (or below) .500, and Gray remembers Wilson calling her out.
“There’s no way I should ever have more assists than you,” Gray recalls Wilson telling her.
The words stung.
Through the end of June, the reigning WNBA MVP had out-assisted the “Point Gawd” in six games, and the Aces turned the calendar to July with an 8-8 record. At the time, the 32-year-old Gray, who has filled hours of video with flashy passes over the course of her career, averaged 4.3 assists.
“Our relationship is super honest and raw,” Gray said. “I’ve cried in front of her. She’s cried in front of me.”
From July through the end of the regular season, Gray averaged 7.1 assists, including a season-high 14 in an August game against Dallas when the Aces were in the middle of a 16-game winning streak. In the playoffs, Gray pushed that average up to 7.8, the highest postseason average in her career. She has had 10 assists in three of the Aces’ 10 postseason games so far.
Her response to Wilson’s challenge has helped guide the Aces to a 2-0 series lead over the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA Finals, two wins away from their third championship in four years. Game 3 is Wednesday in Phoenix (8 ET, ESPN).
“It’s that kind of bond that we can have conversations in the middle of the game,” Gray said. “And we understand where we’re coming from.”
GRAY TAKES THE HANDOFF along the sideline and heads to an open spot. She sits down on the bench wielding a marker and a dry-erase board. It’s Game 1 of the Finals and the score is tied 23-23 with 8:49 left in the second quarter. Gray draws up the play she wants so her teammates can see her thoughts.
After the Aces’ 79-76 victory, Gray is quick to clarify that she isn’t using coach Becky Hammon’s personal board. Not even she is that bold. “They have two boards back there,” Gray said. The one she used doesn’t technically belong to Gray. She just happens to be the one who asks an assistant coach for it.
Gray started taking control of the board in huddles and timeouts from time to time when she came to Las Vegas in 2021 after spending her first six seasons in Connecticut and Los Angeles.
She already had built a reputation as a player with extraordinary vision and a high IQ, and she has only built on that since.
“When she takes the clipboard, everybody locks in,” said Aces guard Dana Evanswho had 21 points in the Game 1 win. “We know that she’s about to show valid points. She’s not doing it just to do it.”
For Gray, it’s about helping her teammates see what she or Hammon are talking about. It’s something she has done more frequently this year.
“They have to see it sometimes on the board rather than just saying it,” Gray said. “It’s made me a better player and a better leader, to be able to explain stuff. And people listen. It’s allowed our huddles to be a little bit tighter.”
Ceding some control to Gray is an easy decision for Hammon when the results are buckets. Hammon may call one out of bounds play, but if Gray sees something different, she’s empowered to make a different one.
That was the case during Game 3 of the Aces’ semifinal series against the Indiana Fever. With 3.6 seconds left in the third quarter, the referee handed Gray the ball to inbound from the sideline on their side of half court. Gray recognized that Jackie Young had leverage on her defender, who’d inadvertently given Young a free run to the basket. Young took off, and Gray launched the ball down the court. It dropped into Young’s hands in stride and she laid it in.
“My thing is, I always want them to have an aggressive nature,” Hammon said. “These possessions where it’s like they’re running routes over the top, that’s the kind of pace I want all the time. So when they do it without me saying it, I love it.”
GRAY SNAGS THE BALL out of the air and turns up court. The Aces lead by 17 midway through the fourth quarter of Game 2. As Gray trots toward the Aces’ basket, Young flanks her on the outside. Young gets a step ahead of Mercury guard Kahleah Copper and turns up the speed.
Gray sees the beginning of separation and turns her head away from Young as she drops a perfectly weighted bounce pass past Copper’s outstretched fingers. Young scoops up the ball in stride and lays it in for two of her 32 points on the day. The basket is Gray’s 10th assist, marking her second career Finals game with 10 points and 10 assists. Only three other players have multiple such games in their careers: Alyssa Thomas, Courtney Vandersloot and Sue Bird.
Gray finished with 10 points, 10 assists, 8 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 blocks in the Aces’ 91-78 Game 2 win.
“She does so many little things,” Hammon said Sunday. “Her passing is elite, but it’s all the other little things that she’s doing that really helped us win the basketball game.”
A year ago, Gray was working her way back from a fracture in her left foot suffered during the 2023 WNBA Finals. She lacked her usual mobility and power. She couldn’t get the separation she needed for her pinpoint passes, and she couldn’t get the lift she needed to hit her fadeaway jumper. The Aces lost to the eventual champion Liberty in the semifinals.
Gray experienced injuries at the end of her college career at Duke that bled into the beginning of her professional career. A right kneecap fracture sidelined her for the entirety of her 2014 rookie season with Connecticut. But until that foot fracture, she hadn’t been seriously injured as a pro, and she’d never returned midseason before.
She wasn’t herself physically last season, but Gray said that has changed this year. She said she’s in her best shape since the 2023 championship run.
“It really helps our team,” Gray said. “I’m able to play for longer stints at a high level both offensively and defensively.”
Gray, who will play in her 20th WNBA Finals game on Wednesday, the most among active players, is showing why she is the only pure point guard to ever win Finals MVP, which she did in 2022. She is shooting 45% from 3-point range this postseason, up from 37% during the regular season, and her best postseason percentage since that 2022 run. Her hands-on defense is creating additional opportunities and possessions. Gray averaged 1.4 steals in the regular season, but is averaging 2.2 steals in the postseason.
Mercury assistant Kristi Toliver knows how difficult it can be to slow down Gray. Toliver watched her development up close when Gray was the starting point guard in L.A. for the 2016 season, Gray’s first in a Sparks uniform.
“She’s fearless,” Toliver said. “She’s clutch and wants that moment. She wants that smoke.”
What Gray doesn’t want is another game where Wilson can point out her lack of production. If Gray were so inclined, she could rib the co-defensive player of the year about out-blocking her in Game 2. It is, after all, the kind of relationship they have. The kind of relationship champions have.
“She’s always going to be her true self, and it allows you to be your true self,” Wilson said. “I think that has always been our friendship and our bond. She’s calm through the storm. I’m so grateful for her to be our point guard.”
