Aliyah Boston just made Fever history with surprise accolade

Jeremy Beren

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Aliyah Boston just made Fever history with surprise accolade image

Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

The Indiana Fever continue to gain recognition for a historic 2025 season. Though Indiana was expected to be among the WNBA's title contenders, the Fever battled numerous player absences -- including season-ending injuries to Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham -- as they upset the Atlanta Dream and pushed the Las Vegas Aces to the brink as a #6 seed in the playoffs.

Aliyah Boston was one of the few Fever players who stayed healthy all year -- and now she is reaping the rewards of her consistent, impactful play, after a season that saw her make her third All-Star team in as many WNBA seasons.

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Boston on Wednesday became the first Fever player in eight years -- since current Indiana assistant coach Briann January in 2017 -- to garner inclusion on one of the WNBA's two All-Defense teams. Boston was voted second-team All-Defense, alongside Atlanta's Rhyne Howard, Seattle's Ezi Magbegor, Golden State's Veronica Burton and New York's Breanna Stewart.

Boston's inclusion on an All-Defense team might be something of a surprise, given she ranked 19th among qualified players in defensive rating. In fact, of the 10 players selected to All-Defense teams, only Boston, Burton and Howard ranked outside the top 15 in points allowed per 100 possessions when they were on the court in 2025.

But there is no denying Boston's impact on a Fever team that battled an unusually-high number of injuries in 2025. The top pick in the 2023 draft, Boston was one of four Indiana players to start all 52 games between the regular season and the playoffs; she led her team in rebounds at 8.2 per game and finished third in scoring at 15 points per game. The Fever's 24 wins were a franchise record, and they finished one game shy of reaching the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2015.

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Jeremy Beren

Jeremy Beren is a freelance WNBA writer with The Sporting News. A Phoenix native, he is a graduate of Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and he has a decade’s worth of sports journalism experience. Jeremy's work has appeared in publications such as Marca, SB Nation, Athlon Sports and Vice Sports. He currently lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.