Diana Taurasi’s slicked-back bun. The 2025 All-Star “Pay Us What You Owe Us” warmup shirts. Ellie the Elephant’s braid. Kelsey Plum’s comically undersized 2022 All-Star MVP trophy. Over the WNBA’s 30 seasons, the league has accumulated a treasure trove of cultural artifacts that have come to shape the W’s lore. This June, during the WNBA’s 30th birthday month and, of course, Pride, it’s time to add another relic to the league’s gallery: A’ja Wilson’s Pride cakes. In a tradition dating back to 2023, every June Wilson presents her Aces teammates with an LGBTQ-inspired, kaleidoscopic cake to celebrate Pride month. But Wilson isn’t alone in this endeavor; the Las Vegas star has recruited local baker and owner of 2blovedcheesecakes, Brittany Brumfield, as her collaborator. The two were put in touch by Brumfield’s husband, Pierre Jackson, who is a professional basketball player and served as a practice player for the Aces. One day, when Wilson asked if anyone knew of a baker, Jackson put Brumfield’s name forward.Also a full-time student, Brumfield is completely self-taught and a one-woman show. “I love sweets,” Brumfield says. “I’ve always been a baker, and I was raised at my grandma’s house; I was always in the kitchen baking.” But her creative pursuits in the kitchen took a more professional turn during the COVID-19 lockdown. “When the world was shut down, there was nothing else to do,” Brumfield says. “At first I was just baking, and then it went into decorating.”Adorning her creations has become Brumfield’s favorite part of the process, allowing her to express her creative flair. And working with Wilson has stretched the bounds of the baker’s imagination. The cakes are emblazoned with supportive yet playful messages and accented with elaborate, sparkling imagery. The inaugural cake read “Go Gays!” The following years’ celebratory desserts were more involved and verbose. “Hooray You Gay,” was plastered on 2024’s version, with bedazzled scissors, rainbows and disco balls on the trim. The 2025 gateau was inscribed with the multicolor text: “Let’s Get One Thing Straight You Aren’t.” This year’s origination is Brumfield’s favorite, as it was certainly the most detailed and once again featured a Wilson original. “The Closet Had Terrible Lighting Anyways” was affixed to a cake replica of a closet, with various glittery items tumbling out of an ajar door. “A’ja is really funny—I think everybody knows that—but she is so down-to-earth and just seeing how silly she is, it’s been cool to go back and forth with her and help her ideas come to life.“Whatever it says, A’ja says that, like that’s from A’ja directly,” Brumfield says. “She gives me creative freedom, too. So I added some scissors in one. I guess people love the scissors—I added that in one.”These confectionery works of art were born out of a mind meld between Wilson and Brumfield, with the Las Vegas baker bringing to life the WNBA star’s off-the-wall, eccentric ideas. When speaking to the media after the Aces’ June 25 game against the Wings, Wilson recalled going to a different bakery to commission a Pride cake, and they didn’t quite get the tone Wilson was going for. Brumfield, on the other hand, just seemed to get it. “She is always on point with everything that I ask for,” Wison said, “and I really just dive into this crazy piece of my mind to see what could be the most outlandish stuff for my teammates that I love so much this month.”Brumfield’s collaboration with Wilson has led to other projects with the Aces family, including Brumfield making a cake for Chelsea Gray’s baby shower, as well as cakes for Jackie Young and Bam Adebayo. Coming from a basketball family, Brumfield says she feels honored and blessed to be part of what’s become a WNBA tradition. She’s tickled by the feedback the cakes have gotten online, too, which has only added to the mythology around them. Like any of the league’s customs, WNBA social media has elevated the annual occurrence to folklore status.During a season when the WNBA is reflecting on the cultural items that have made the league what it is over the past 30 years, perhaps there is no more fitting submission to the W’s retrospective than Wilson’s Pride cakes—as irreverent, charismatic and gay as they are. More WNBA from Sports IllustratedAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow