The three stars who made the Aces three-time WNBA champs

PHOENIX -- Jackie Young dribbles the ball up the court as the final seconds in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals tick down on Friday night. She can do whatever she wants with it. The title is secure. Chelsea Gray runs to A'ja Wilson and jumps into the four-time MVP's arms. They hop and hug while the scoreboard makes it official and time expires. Young throws the ball into the air.

The Las Vegas Aces are the 2025 WNBA champions. They defeated the Phoenix Mercury 97-86 and closed out the first best-of-seven WNBA Finals with a 4-0 sweep.

Gray wraps Wilson in a bear hug. Now Young. Coach Becky Hammon pulls the much taller Wilson down to her.

Aces fans who traveled to Phoenix celebrate by chanting "Aces, Aces" from their small but enthusiastic section in Mortgage Matchup Center. One fan waves a championship banner, the third for the Aces in the past four years.

"We got the best player in the world in A'ja Wilson," Gray says. "Jackie Young the best guard in the league. Everybody that stepped in was huge. We champions."

Only one team in league history had won three titles in four years before the Aces, and that was the Houston Comets in the league's first four seasons (1997-2000). The Minnesota Lynx, who won four titles in seven years from 2011 to '17, became the league's second ruling family. And now it's the era of the Aces and the era of Wilson and Young and Gray. The roster has shifted and changed since their first title in 2022, but these three have been constants, choosing to chase rings and banners in Las Vegas with each other.

"They understand winning," former Aces coach Bill Laimbeer said to ESPN on Friday. "They understand the grass is not greener on the other side."

Individually they are exceptional. Together they are legendary.

"They're family," Aces president Nikki Fargas said. "They look at this game that they are so fortunate to play as an opportunity to build long, lasting memories. The journey hasn't always been that easy for the three of them, but they've navigated the waters and they've done it with each individual stepping up at different times to lead."

THE SEEDS OF this modern WNBA dynasty were planted in 2018 when the woeful San Antonio Silver Stars moved from a Texas city to the glitz and glam of Las Vegas and became the Aces. The franchise hired Laimbeer, a three-time WNBA championship-winning coach with the Detroit Shock, as president of basketball operations and head coach.

The Aces arrived with the No. 1 draft pick up their sleeves.

Wilson, who led South Carolina to its first national championship in 2017, was the "no-brainer" choice, as Laimbeer saw it. The agile 6-foot-4 forward won rookie of the year in 2018 after averaging 20.7 points and 8.0 rebounds. But the Aces finished 14-20 and wound up with the top pick again in the 2019 draft.

Las Vegas chose Jackie Young, a 6-foot guard who had won a national championship with Notre Dame in 2018.

"People might have thought him drafting me was a little questionable," Young said. "But he saw the vision all along. He knew the kind of player I could turn into."

Wilson and Young led Las Vegas to its first Finals in 2020, where they got swept by Seattle in the bubble. Before the 2021 season, Gray, a 5-11 point guard maestro with a championship ring from the 2016 season with the Los Angeles Sparks, signed with Las Vegas.

"She had championship experience, which the Aces needed," Laimbeer said. "She was somebody who had been there, done that, but also has the unselfish mentality."

In Game 5 of the 2021 semifinals against the Mercury, the Aces trailed by two when Wilson caught the ball with mere ticks left on the clock and the opportunity to send the Aces back to the Finals. She split a double-team and drove to the basket, but Mercury center Brittney Griner blocked her shot at the buzzer.

Wilson collapsed on the court, exhausted and emotional. Her teammates helped her back to the locker room. Young stood right there, holding Wilson and encouraging her. Gray walked off the court ahead of them, raising her jersey to cover her face.

"To have it literally smack back in my face, it was hurtful," Wilson said. "But at the same time, it built me."

The year 2021 stands out in Aces history for another reason: Mark Davis bought the team and the Aces hung the jersey of former franchise great and then-San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Hammon in the rafters that summer. Fargas remembers clutching Hammon's hand as her jersey was lifted to the ceiling.

"I'm almost sending her vibes," Fargas said. "Like, 'We want you here.'"

Laimbeer stepped aside after 2021, and in 2022 Hammon returned to the franchise that retired her number, this time ready to show out on the sideline.

LOST IN THE Aces' dominance of the Mercury in the 2025 WNBA Finals is the fact that they almost didn't make it to the final round at all. Gray, who has made a career of putting the basketball in the right place at the right time, stamped their third trip in four years.

In overtime of Game 5 of the semifinals, the Aces needed a big shot. Las Vegas was up by one over an Indiana Fever team that would not go away. The Fever had lost All-Stars Aliyah Boston (fouled out) and Kelsey Mitchell (injury), and didn't have the likes of Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, who had long been out with season-ending injuries. But the players on the court simply didn't give a damn. They refused to let the Aces pull away.

With just over 3 minutes left in overtime, Gray waved at Young, who was driving to her left to the middle of the floor. Young turned and passed the ball back to Gray, who was set up on the wing. Gray caught the ball and immediately launched a 3-pointer. It dropped through the net.

The next time down the floor, Young scanned the floor as the shot clock dwindled. Gray ran toward her and caught the ball behind the 3-point line. She took two dribbles with her left hand before pulling up over a defender and fading to her side to hit another 3-point shot.

"That was crazy," Young said. "I told her 'Sorry, I set you up for sure.'"

It didn't matter that she was 0-for-3 from 3-point range until those two shots or that her sideways momentum made the degree of difficulty on the shot a 10 out of 10. It was crunch time. It was Gray time. With 1:09 to go, Gray flicked in a layup to give Las Vegas all the points it needed to finally break the Fever and claim a spot in the Finals against the Mercury.

Gray's clutch gene delivered when the Aces needed it most. The Aces had seen this show before. Gray was named Finals MVP when the Aces won their first championship in 2022 by beating the Connecticut Sun in the Finals.

During that playoff run, Gray averaged 21.7 points and 7.0 assists per game while shooting 61.1% from the floor and 54.4% from beyond the arc.

In 2023, the Aces ran it back, defeating the New York Liberty 3-1. Gray fractured her foot in Game 3 and was sidelined for the final game of the series. She also missed the first 12 games of the 2024 season, and still wasn't quite herself during the 2024 playoffs when the Aces got bounced in the semifinals by a Liberty team out for revenge.

This year's run necessitated a different style of play from Gray. She was called upon less often to score, but her 7.5 assists per game were a career postseason high. Still, in Game 4, she hit two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to stymie a late Mercury push.

"My job with A'ja and Jackie is to find them a bucket that's easy, all they have to do is lay it up," Gray said. "They're capable of going to get a bucket any time they want one-on-one, but there's passes that only a few can catch."

YOUNG SIZED UP Mercury forward Natasha Mack on the wing in the third quarter of Game 2 of the 2025 Finals. She jabbed with her right foot, poking for vulnerabilities and looking to drive. When that door didn't open, Young peered around Mack and looked for an opening to pass the ball down to NaLyssa Smith in the post. Mack shut down that idea too.

Then Young squared up, launched a 3-pointer over Mack's head and drained it. Her first three points in a historic 21-point quarter, the most in a single quarter of a WNBA Finals game ever.

Her ability to score in bunches had been so well documented by then that folks in her hometown had a name for it.

Laimbeer learned about it a year after the Aces drafted Young when he ran into someone from her hometown. "There's nobody from Jackie's hometown," Laimbeer joked of Princeton, Indiana, population 8,481.

Laimbeer shared with the Princetonian that what he liked about Young was that she would willingly defer to others, but she would also willingly take over the game when required. No questions asked. "The lady goes, 'In our town, we call that Jackie Time,'" Laimbeer said.

"Jackie Time" was on full display in the third quarter of Game 2. But she had help. Like the ball screens Wilson set to open up driving lanes, or the seal from Wilson that gave Young a wide-open jumper.

Wilson and Young have played together for seven years now. Their relationship grew one game and one car ride at a time.

In their first couple of years together with the Aces, they often drove around Las Vegas. Their city. Mostly in Wilson's car because "I'm a bit of a passenger princess," Young said. Those off-court moments built a relationship that strengthened their on-court chemistry.

"That's my little sister I never wanted, but God put in my life," Wilson said.

Laimbeer told them to cherish each other.

"You two are a team forever," Laimbeer recalled saying to Young and Wilson. "Don't ever leave each other."

WILSON CAUGHT THE inbounds pass from Gray with the score tied in Game 3. The clock blinked as it ticked down toward the buzzer. Wilson dribbled to her left, past Mercury All-Star Alyssa Thomas. When she met DeWanna Bonner, she picked up her dribble and spun to her right. Thomas recovered and tried to contest as Wilson elevated for her shot. She flicked her wrist toward the basket with 2.2 seconds left.

The ball rattled around the rim before dropping through to deliver the Aces a 3-0 series lead. It was the crowning moment of ascension for Wilson. She, alone, occupies the mountaintop. Her legacy, though still taking shape, has already secured her a place among basketball legends.

"Probably No. 1," Wilson said of where she'd rank that shot in her career. "I don't think I've ever shot a true game winner, and then when I see the 2.2 on the clock, it just reminds me that I'm covered [by God]. And I think that's just truly special."

Laimbeer knew he had made the right choice when he selected Wilson No. 1. But he also knew she had a lot of leadership lessons to learn in the transition from college to pro. "There's a ton of other stuff that comes with the responsibility of being a franchise player, and she had to learn that," Laimbeer said.

After losing Game 1 of the semifinals at home against the Fever last month, Wilson had a tough message for her teammates. "I told my team the loss yesterday was more embarrassing to me than the 53-point loss," Wilson said the day after the game, referencing the Aces' Aug. 2 111-58 debacle against Minnesota. "It was like we really didn't do anything."

Wilson, herself, didn't play well in the opener of the semifinals. She shot 6-for-22 and scored 16 points. From then until she lifted the trophy, she averaged 27.3 points on 47.9% shooting, 10.1 rebounds, 2.3 steals, and 2.5 blocks. She was named MVP of the Finals -- after winning the scoring title, MVP and Defensive Player of the Year this season.

"She just continues to get better," Hammon said. "She just continues to blow me away, too. And we just keep challenging her in these different ways. She just keeps adding things. She's not even 30 yet."

"HOPE Y'ALL ENJOYED THAT!" Gray says as she walks down the hallway toward the Aces' locker room. "See y'all next summer!"

Wilson isn't far behind. Clutching the championship trophy, she skips down the hallway before running to the locker room.

When the players emerge, they are wearing champagne goggles and reek of beer. Wilson enters the news conference ringing a pink tambourine while Aces owner Davis attempts to answer a serious question.

"I need to sit down," she says and finds a spot among the media chairs, still wearing her goggles.

The celebration continues. Wilson rings the tambourine, using it as emphatic punctuation for statements from her teammates. She looks bewildered when someone brings up Michael Jordan comparisons. Young quietly holds her oversized bottle of champagne or beer, it isn't clear which, opting not to speak unless spoken to. Except when she's whispering to Wilson behind Gray's back. Gray tries to keep everyone in line.

"These three," Hammon says about her star trio, tears welling in her eyes. "I love being their coach. I love being their friend. I love being a phone call for them. I push them probably sometimes to their disliking a little bit, but I'm invested in their greatness."

As Hammon speaks, Wilson holds up a towel so she can't look at her coach. But as Hammon continues, Wilson brings the towel down, raises her goggles, and covers her teary eyes. Gray and Young both look away from their teammate and coach in an effort to conceal their own emotion.

Gray, Wilson and Young are all free agents after this season. They could go anywhere, but why would they?

Individually they are exceptional. Together they are legendary.

"Greatness is who you're around," Wilson says. "Like this group."