The Las Vegas Aces were in a state of shock in Game 3 of the 2023 WNBA finals. Their leader Chelsea Gray suddenly started limping and was visibly in pain. “Something’s popped,” she said during a timeout. More than the injury itself, the possibility of not being able to steer the Aces to their second consecutive championship haunted her. Nearly a year on, Gray’s teammate and 3x MVP A’ja Wilson has shared her true feelings about that incident.

The Aces have released Part One of ‘Back To Form: The Chelsea Gray Documentary’ on YouTube. It dives deep into Gray’s injury and what her teammates felt at the moment. “It was a normal play, normal moment that I’ve done thousands of times, and that was the 1001st… just like no, it’s time to sit down,” Gray said, recalling that distressing moment that eventually ruled her out of the first 12 games of the 2024 season as well.

However, it was A’ja Wilson who sounded more heartbroken than Gray, having had a similar ankle injury in 2019, and getting sidelined for weeks. “I was like there’s no way that this is how the story is about to be written,” the 2024 MVP said. “My heart was broken into so many pieces for Chelsea because I knew how much she wanted it. I knew how much she knew how she meant to us.”

Even head coach Becky Hammon cried on the court, feeling frustrated with no way to help her 10th-year veteran. Though Chelsea Gray walked off the court in pain and couldn’t play in Game 4, she transformed into the team’s 4th assistant coach, calling plays and encouraging her teammates from the bench. Voila! the team didn’t let her down and crushed the New York Liberty on their home turf to take the championship trophy home.

Fast forward to 2024, when Gray returned to the court in the Aces’ 13th game of the season, she underperformed. In her first 12 games after returning, she averaged only 7.3 points, shooting 39% from the field. Yet, her leadership stood out, and it’s best you hear the rest from Wilson.

A’ja Wilson commends “main ingredient” Chelsea Gray as the Aces pursue 3-peat

The negative effects of Chelsea Gray’s absence were blatantly visible at the beginning of the 2024 season. The Las Vegas Aces lost more games in the first quarter of this season than in the entirety of 2023. But slowly, Gray returned to where she left off in 2023. In the crucial games before the playoffs, the 5’11 Guard’s average rose to 10.6 points in eight games.

A’ja Wilson made sure to make Gray as confident as possible before the playoffs. “She’s a main ingredient to our recipe, to our cookbook,” Wilson said, as quoted by ESPN. “She’s probably the salt, something that you just need a little kick to it to change the whole meal.”

Coach Becky Hammon echoed Wilson with a chess analogy, saying, “She sees plays two, three steps ahead of everybody else. It’s like a master chess player. You’re playing one move, she’s playing four or five moves ahead of you.”

With the Aces looking to clinch their third consecutive championship, in Game 1 of the first-round matchup against the Seattle Storm, Gray repaid her team’s faith. She scored 16 points (third to Wilson’s 21 and Tiffany Hayes’ 20) and a team-high 7 assists to help the Aces win 78-67 in the Michelob Ultra Arena. The “Point Gawd” has indeed made an emphatic comeback. If Kelsey Plum returns to top form in Game 2, it might quickly be game over for the Storm.