CHICAGO (March 13, 2025) — In its 40th year of honoring the nation’s most elite high school athletes, Gatorade today announced Destiny Lunan of Millennium High School is the 2024-25 Gatorade Arizona Girls Basketball Player of the Year. Lunan is the second Gatorade Arizona Girls Basketball Player of the Year to be chosen from Millennium High School.

Gatorade Player of the Year is the top honor in high school sports, celebrating the nation’s best high school athletes for their success on the court, in the classroom and in the community. The award distinguishes Lunan as Arizona's best high school girls basketball player, and she joins an impressive group of alumni that spans CEOs, coaches and star athletes such as Candace Parker (2002-03 & 2003-04, Naperville Central High School, Illinois), Paige Bueckers (2019-20, Hopkins High School, Minnesota) and Joyce Edwards (2023-24, Camden High School, South Carolina).

The 5-foot-11 senior point guard had led the Tigers to a 24-6 record and the program’s first Open State Tournament state title this past season. Lunan scored 37 points in the championship game. She averaged 21.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.7 steals and 3.2 assists on the year. Ranked as the nation’s No. 60 recruit in the Class of 2025 by espnW, she was the EYBL World Grind Session Championship MVP while playing for Bella Vista Prep as a sophomore and was also named to the 2025 All-Tournament Team at the Nike TOC in Chicago.

Lunan has volunteered locally as a youth basketball instructor both with the Christ’s Church of the Valley Exceptional Stars program and her parents basketball training facility, Basketball Ingredients. She has also donated her time on behalf of Unified Sports, which joins people with and without intellectual challenges on the same sports team. “In my eyes, Destiny is the clear-cut best player in Arizona this year,” said Andrew Curtis, head coach at Perry High School. “When preparing to play against her, you have to spend just as much time worrying about her at both the offensive and defensive ends of the floor. Very few players in the country are elite on both ends of the floor, and she’s one of them.”

Lunan has maintained a 3.67 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a written letter of athletic aid to play basketball at North Carolina State University this fall.

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states across 12 different high school sports – football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field – and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.

Lunan joins recent Gatorade Arizona Girls Basketball Players of the Year Wrenwyck "Shay" Ijiwoye (2023-24, Desert Vista High School), Khamil Pierre (2022-23, Perry High School), Jennah Isai (2021-22, Valley Vista High School) and Marisa Davis (2020-21, Valley Vista High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.

As part of Gatorade’s commitment to breaking down barriers in sport, every Player of the Year also receives a grant to donate to a social impact partner. To date, the Gatorade Player of the Year program has provided more than $5.6 million in grants to winners across more than 2,000 organizations.

To learn more about the Gatorade Player of the Year program, check out past winners or to nominate student - athletes, visit playeroftheyear.gatorade.com or follow us on social media on Instagram at instagram.com/Gatorade, Facebook at facebook.com/GatoradePOY and X (Twitter) at x.com/Gatorade.