Las Vegas Aces might have more hardware than any team in WNBA history

The Las Vegas Aces collected a historic number of trophies and honors during the 2022 WNBA season, culminating with the first title in franchise history.

The Las Vegas Aces capped off their season with a 78-71 victory over the Connecticut Sun in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals, securing the league’s biggest prize. But the WNBA Championship Trophy is far from the only bit of hardware they secured this season.

The Aces also defeated the Chicago Sky in July to secure the 2022 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup, “an in-season competition that featured 61 games throughout the regular season, with players competing for a prize pool of $500,000 and an additional $165,000 for charitable and civic organizations.”

And then there were the individual awards.

A’ja Wilson won both the regular season MVP and Defensive Player of the Year Awards, becoming the fifth player in league history to win both in the same season.

It was a foregone conclusion that one of the Aces would be WNBA Finals MVP after winning the series, but the honor went to Chelsea Gray who averaged 18.3 points, 6.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds in the series, on a 67.2 true shooting percentage.

First-year head coach Becky Hammon won WNBA Coach of the Year. Guard Jackie Young won Most Improved Player. And Kelsey Plum won the comically tiny WNBA All-Star Game MVP trophy back in July. That’s an unprecedented number of regular season awards for a team that also went on to win the championship.

No one has as many trophies as the Las Vegas Aces

The only other WNBA champion to take even three of the regular-season awards was the 2000 Houston Comets, who had Cynthia Cooper win MVP, Sheryl Swoopes win Defensive Player of the Year and Tina Thompson win All-Star MVP.

A few teams might have moved up this list if the WNBA had given out the 6th Player of the Year award before 2007, or if the All-Star Game had been played right from the league’s inception and during summers in which the Olympics were also held. But still, no one would likely have caught this year’s Aces.

In addition, this year’s Aces had a combined seven All-Star, All-Defense, All-Rookie and All-WNBA selections. Only three other WNBA champions have ever made it to eight, the 2011, 2013 and 2017 Minnesota Lynx. Those three teams won a combined four regular-season awards, less than Aces did just this season.

Winning is about a lot more than just winning trophies, but no WNBA team has ever won trophies like the 2022 Las Vegas Aces.