The origin story of the best women’s basketball tandem in the world — and now the protectors of Team USA’s dominant legacy — started 11 years ago in Lithuania.
In July 2013, a young Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson joined forces on the USA’s FIBA U19 World Cup team. Stewart, 18 years old and fresh off her first national title at UConn, had long been part of USA Basketball. Wilson, 16, was months away from committing to South Carolina for her collegiate career and an up-and-comer in the national team pipeline.
After cruising to a 61-28 victory over France in the final, Stewart, the World Cup MVP, and Wilson posed together with their gold medals and made silly faces. Over a decade and many gold medals later, a photo of the moment resurfaced at last month’s WNBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix, where the pair once more sported USA on their chests on the eve of the Paris Olympics.
“A’ja, A’ja, A’ja!” Stewart shouted across the room during a media availability, both of them separated by throngs of reporters. “Did you see this picture? We need to re-enact that!”
Upon seeing the photo, Wilson roared with laughter.
“Not Lithuania!” Wilson yelled back to Stewart. “OK, yeah, we’ve got to!”
Stewart and Wilson said now they couldn’t have imagined being the pillars of Team USA all those years ago. But that’s the position in which the duo — fierce competitors in the WNBA, two of the most decorated Americans the sport has seen — finds itself this summer at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
Six-time Olympian Diana Taurasi is still there — the “camp supervisor,” Wilson called her — but there’s no question whose team it is.
And the two erased any doubt when they combined for 46 points, 21 rebounds, 7 assists and 7 blocks in the United States’ win over Japan on Monday, as they began their Olympic run.
“They both lead by example,” two-time Olympian Napheesa Collier said. “You can see how hard they work and their mentality which is really fun to see, just how dominant they are.”
Their transcendent play on the court, along with their leadership, will fuel the program as it goes for its eighth consecutive and 10th overall Olympic gold, with Belgium up next Thursday.
“Now the torch gets passed,” U.S. national team coach Cheryl Reeve said in Phoenix. “There’s no longer a Sue Bird, somebody like that. There’s a space there, and both of those players are, I think, prepared to embrace that, and that’ll be important for our team’s success.”
The 2013 U19 World Cup took Wilson, Stewart and the rest of the undefeated USA squad to the Canary Islands for a preliminary event, then to the Lithuanian cities of Panevėžys — where they briefly stayed at a truck stop hotel in the countryside — and Klaipeda, a port city on the western coast that hosted the medal rounds.
Players switched roommates multiple times throughout the competition, and Klaipeda was where Stewart and Wilson roomed together. Looking to entertain themselves one night, the two stuck their heads out the window of their hotel room to get a better look at the Baltic Sea. Wilson held her phone out the window, seven stories up, and snapped a selfie.
“We were just silly kids,” Wilson told ESPN in Phoenix. “It was just genuine friendship and I can always appreciate that.”
“We were like shells of ourselves as people and players and we were just enjoying the moment together and having fun and winning,” Stewart told ESPN in Phoenix. “It’s incredible to look back and see those pictures and see how far we’ve come.”
Most WNBA fans are accustomed to seeing Stewart and Wilson as on-court rivals practically taking turns winning individual accolades and championships. The No. 1 draft picks in 2016 and 2018, respectively, have won four of the past six WNBA titles and MVP awards. With Candace Parker retired and Elena Delle Donne not playing this season, Stewart and Wilson are the only active players with multiple MVP honors.
Stewart and the Seattle Storm won championships in 2018 — Stewart’s first MVP and Finals MVP year — and 2020. In the “bubble” pandemic season, Wilson took home her first MVP, despite Seattle sweeping the Las Vegas Aces in the Finals, earning Stewart her second Finals MVP honor.
More recently, Wilson has the edge. In 2022, she won her second MVP as Las Vegas defeated Seattle in the semifinals on the Aces’ way to clinching their first WNBA championship.
Stewart signed with the New York Liberty that offseason, launching a superteam battle between the two cross-country franchises. She collected her second MVP in a tight-as-can-be three-way race with Wilson and Paris Games teammate Alyssa Thomas. Still, the Aces had the last word, repeating as champions with Wilson securing her first Finals MVP.
“It is incredible how much those two have improved every year, have added something,” said Reeve, who has faced Stewart and Wilson plenty of times as the longtime coach of the Minnesota Lynx. “It’s incredible the levels that they both play at.”
Katie Meier, who coached the duo on that 2013 U19 team, told ESPN the qualities that made them stand out back then continue to define them now.
“In the moment where you need to just make sure you win the gold,” she said, “Stewie’s always that person.”
Wilson, meanwhile, “doesn’t doubt herself,” Meier said. “She just really doesn’t have that moment where she’s not sure there’s something she can’t conquer.”
Their on-court excellence also complements their off-court popularity. Stewart has a signature sneaker with Puma, and Wilson’s Nike shoe is on the way in 2025. Stewart jokes Wilson was quieter a decade ago, even if the latter is known now for her energy and charisma. Both are outspoken on issues that matter to them within the league as well as outside sports, from LGBTQIA+ rights and mental health advocacy to racial justice.
When the WNBA season resumes Aug. 15, the two will be back battling each other, with the Liberty sitting at first place in the standings but Wilson — on pace to break the single-season scoring record as she tries to lead the Aces to a three-peat — the presumptive favorite for MVP.
Even as they duke it out for WNBA supremacy, their respect and appreciation for each other has connected Wilson and Stewart across the years.
“It’s been incredible, and the reason why I will always rock with Stewie is because she never changes,” Wilson told ESPN. “She’s always been that. We’ve always been just two happy-go-lucky girls that have just been gifted with talent to play basketball very well.”
Especially now, with women’s basketball surging in popularity and the league reaching new heights in its growth, both understand their roles as faces of the sport.
“A’ja and I know that we’re the ones that are going to continue to push this thing forward, on and off the court, and take tons of pride in that,” Stewart told ESPN. “So [it’s great] seeing her dominate with Vegas, obviously hopefully not against us when we go head-to-head, but knowing that she’s using her platform and her spotlight to make it better for the next generation and do what we can for this league.”
Wilson and Stewart sat next to each other on the dais, disappointed after Team USA’s 117-109 loss to Team WNBA in the WNBA All-Star Game two weeks ago. They are aware of the responsibility that comes with representing the United States on the Olympic stage.
The All-Stars might have been a better collection of talent than any group they’ll face in France over the next few weeks, but that didn’t matter. “I think that everyone knows this is not what we do with USA Basketball,” Stewart said.
“We’re in the shifting of the guards, if you will,” she added. “A’ja and I have talked about it, it’s just like making sure that this is our team and we don’t let anything get past us.”
The U.S. women bounced back with a 27-point win in an exhibition game against Germany — which they’ll face again in the group phase Sunday — followed by the 26-point victory over Japan, the 2020 Tokyo silver medalists. Stewart and Wilson became the first USA women’s basketball teammates since 2004, and fourth overall, to have 20 points each in the same Olympic game.
“We have two of the best players in the world on the court and [we have to take] advantage of that because our opportunities to play together and to do this doesn’t happen often,” Stewart told ESPN.
A changing of the guard was inevitable for Paris: It is the first Games since 2000 without Bird — a five-time Olympian who concluded her USA Basketball career in Tokyo — and Taurasi’s last.
The dominance and experience of Stewart, a three-time Olympian, and Wilson, appearing in her second Olympics, make them the perfect heirs of a storied USA Basketball program. And with both under 30, the Stewart-Wilson power tandem could be around for two more Olympic cycles.
“I think they’ve taken the next step over here,” Taurasi said this week. “USA Basketball is always one of those tricky situations where you have obviously myself and some older players like [Brittney Griner], but there’s always the passing of the guard.
“Those two, they mainly do it with their play, the way they prepare every day, the way they dominate these games. They’ve been doing it for a couple tournaments now. So they’ve definitely taken that leadership role every single day.”
Their consistency is a model for the team’s lesser experienced Olympians; the roster welcomes five newcomers to the 5-on-5 roster and three first-time Olympians overall.
“Particularly with those two having been here, having the experience, [they] hold us to a really high standard,” said Stewart’s Liberty teammate Sabrina Ionescu, a first-time Olympian and the team’s youngest player.
The best part about their joint leadership, Wilson added: They don’t need to change who they are. And as history has shown, who they are — individually and together — is a force to be reckoned with.
“I think A’ja and I can really just take ownership of this team and what we want to do,” Stewart said in Phoenix. “We have this opportunity to really work together and have this tandem that is unstoppable, and play into that and have a lot of fun with it.”
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst contributed to this report.
