By Sean Gregory

Covering Wilson’s left hand is the golden gauntlet worn by Thanos, the Marvel supervillain. Under each of the six Infinity Stones that control the universe, Wilson, the 6-ft., 4-in. superstar, has written one of her season’s honors: Scoring title, her second; 5K—in June she became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach the 5,000-point milestone; DPOY, for defensive player of the year, her third; MVP, her record fourth; Finals MVP, her second; and Champ, her third. She’s the first player, in WNBA or NBA history, to win a championship and be named Finals MVP, league MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. And she’s one of just four players in either league to win four MVP trophies before the age of 30, the others being Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, and LeBron James. “I’m waiting on them to call for the Academy Award and the Emmy,” says her father, Roscoe.

But Wilson is not exactly living out an early childhood dream. Her general stance as a kid growing up near Columbia, S.C., was: anything but basketball. Continue reading in TIME...

Photographs by Kanya Iwana for TIME (@kanyaiwana)
Additional Credits:
Set Design by Gabriela Soto (@set_machine)
Styling by Rául Guerrero (@ralguerrero)
Hair by Harold Harper
Make-up by Nathalie Pierre
Production by Rob Uguccioni (@robuguccioni_)