Aces all-in on No. 1 pick A'ja Wilson ahead of WNBA debut

With eight of 12 teams making the playoffs each year, there's less impetus in the WNBA for the sort of dramatic, long-term rebuild that's often seen in the NBA. If a team can just stay afloat and sneak into the playoffs - like the 15-19 Seattle Storm did last season - then it's only two single-elimination games away from the conference finals and just two best-of-five series away from earning the league title. Still, the nascent Las Vegas Aces have more modest expectations - for now.

Coming off a league-worst eight-win season, the franchise relocated from San Antonio in hopes of making its own luck in Sin City this year. In the process, the club added its second straight No. 1 overall draft pick in South Carolina big A'ja Wilson, a dominant inside force who should pair well with guard Kelsey Plum, the No. 1 draft pick in 2017, and 2015 All-Star wing Kayla McBride.

"I'm still trying to get a feel for everything and everyone," Wilson told theScore of her first experiences on the pro circuit. "This is our building year. This is a year that we'll really come together with all new everything. Once we get the chemistry down within the team and the franchise, we're really going to be a good team in the league.

"Of course, I already think we're a good team in the league, but I'm being biased," Wilson added, laughing. "I think that's going to be the biggest thing is trusting coach and going from there."

In the Aces' case, "coach" is a pretty good person to trust. Since the end of his excellent playing career, two-time NBA champ and four-time NBA All-Star Bill Laimbeer has plied his trade as one of the top head coaches in WNBA history, guiding the Detroit Shock (now the Dallas Wings after a pit stop in Tulsa) to titles in 2003, 2006, and 2008, and garnering a pair of Coach of the Year awards (2003 and 2015).

After a strong five-season run with the New York Liberty, Laimbeer, also the Aces' president of basketball operations, now finds himself in the desert with his most audacious challenge yet - having to manage both player development and the continued growth of Las Vegas as a professional sports town.

As many players, coaches, and executives in the WNBA know too well, the league is often a battle on two fronts. Not only is every franchise competing for the league title, but also fighting for long-overdue recognition in the sporting public's consciousness. Luckily, Laimbeer's Aces already have an excellent template for how to carve out their niche in a city that's long eschewed the presence of pro sports teams until recently.

"When you look around and see what the (National Hockey League's Vegas) Golden Knights have done here, I think this is a perfect time to build off that," Wilson said. "The crowd that we had for our first preseason game against the Chinese national team, I think it really shows that this city rallies around its teams."

In that tuneup against Team China, Wilson led the charge with 20 points, seven rebounds, and three assists in just under 22 minutes. If the self-proclaimed "happy-go-lucky girl" from South Carolina can continue to stack the deck with performances like that - while perhaps mixing a little Laimbeer-style pugnacity into her interior game - the fans will come.

The first real test comes Saturday afternoon in Connecticut, as the Aces' regular season begins with a tilt against the Sun. Plum and McBride won't be there to shoulder the pressure quite yet, as both of their EuroLeague seasons just concluded after deep postseason runs.

So, for the time being, the Aces are all-in on A'ja.