Aja Wilson is a great woman's basketball player. Wilson is likely the best player currently playing, but there is a hitch.
Wilson is very much a protected species, as they say in Australia, when it comes to officiating. Tonight Wilson completely lost self control and proved to an arrogant entitled creature and not just a basketball player.
Wilson has gotten away with throwing or hitting Fever players so hard they go down, with defensive fouls or no calls. Basketball has always been a game with the proverbial "superstar shuffle", where traveling calls, some minor push offs, a few over-the-backs get the Nelsonian eye, officials just looking the other way. In a professional league, where the obvious purpose is to make money through entertainment you need to keep the superstars on the floor. The dishonest officials have created a violent monster who feels no restraint is necessary on the court.
There has to be a limit, however. The point can be ultimately reached when the integrity of the game becomes so questionable the product suffers. Aja Wilson has arrived at that thug level where her behavior has become indefensible and a league that has suffered one humiliating public relations blow after another needs to take action to restore credibility.
Wilson became the second player in as many months to leave the floor and orally abuse a fan. The next part of the story gets a little murky. Wilson's postgame words are clear. Wilson said the fan that provoked Wilson's verbal launch from off the court was a man standing walking toward her and pointing his finger.
The replays are confusing. Wilson is seen screaming in the direction of two men, neither of whom were near her when her diatribe began. One is a man much older and even less fit than the old Owl. It is hard to see if he is standing or not. This man does not appear to have walked toward Wilson. Wilson is 6'4" and much taller than most men, and very much taller if the elderly gent is standing. Following down Wilson's line of sight a second man appears. The second man is 30" x 8-10, so roughly 20-25 behind the first man. The second man is much younger than the first, black and standing shouting in Wilson's direction. The second man is waving his finger and leaning over the seat to his front. The second man is definitely not walking, and from his position could not have been walking toward Wilson at any point in the occurrence.
Wilson story was shifty from the jump. Wilson initially said her target was walking, and quickly changed to leaning. Then she shifted to someone shaking their finger at her. Wilson started saying she wasn't going to be talked to, in what the Owl assumes was some disrespectful manner. Then Wilson shifted into no one was going to shake their finger, she wasn't going to take that kind of behavior.
It appears that nothing reasonably offensive was said. Whichever man was initially going to be removed was not removed because it appears security that man did nothing wrong and did not say anything beyond the usual less than kind things a professional athlete hears on the road. So Wilson's postgame story appears to be even shakier. It appears Wilson, already a dirty player, admittedly no Thomas or Carrington who are just thugs, said she is not going to let someone point a finger at her. As offensive acts go, a shaking finger is something less than shaking a fist, from 25-40 feet away and something more than a Bronx cheer.
The problem for the Owl is Wilson clearly indicated that a fan shaking a finger at Wilson justifies Wilson's conduct. Wilson got a tech. Wilson should be suspended because she clearly feels entitled to leave the court. Next time she might attack the fan. Wilson needs to learn that she does not have to be apologize for being black or a woman. Wilson needs to learn that she does need to apologize for being a dirty player with rage disorder so uncontrollable she felt entitled to leave the floor and start a verbal attack on what might have have been an old man guilty of nothing worse than shaking a finger at Wilson. Approving Wilson's conduct is how young black people become Karmel Anthony where disrespect justifies murder.
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