r/wnba

I appreciate this piece on Angel. Her game is far from perfect and like the majority of players there are places in her game for improvement. But the disrespect when it comes to talking about her gets frustrating. She's talented and just starting what will hopefully be a long and fruitful career.

The world has missed the mark with Angel Reese

Few basketball players — male or female — are more heavily and frequently critiqued than Angel Reese. Reese, the 24-year-old Atlanta Dream forward, has been an All-Star in each of her first three seasons as a pro, but is widely known (among casuals) as the hooper who goes viral on social media every couple of days for a missed layup.

Yes, it’s true that Reese, who led the LSU Tigers to a 2023 NCAA championship, has flaws to her game.

Stop me if you’ve heard someone rattle off these lines before when Reese’s name comes up: she’s an inefficient paint scorer, and, despite ramping up her three-point attempts (1.3 a night), she’s shooting just 14.3% from beyond the arc.

That’s usually where the conversation ends.

What’s left on the table is the reality that, if she were able to improve her efficiency — which she very well could do in the coming years — she’d probably be an MVP candidate.

But, just because she’s not currently an MVP candidate doesn’t mean we’re not watching the early years of an all-time great. You have to watch hours and hours of Angel Reese to truly understand what kind of impact she has on her team.

Defensively, she’s been an absolute difference-maker for the Dream, whose defensive rating is 14.9 points better with her on the floor than off of it. That’s (by far) the best mark in the WNBA; the Dream allow 14.9 more points per 100 possessions with Reese sidelined, per Hoops Junkie.

The next best defensive rating point differential? That belongs to Jackie Young at -11.5. The Las Vegas Aces are 11.5 points per possession worse defensively when Young is sidelined, and it shows. But Reese’s defensive on-off numbers are in a league of their own.

Part of that is due to her switchability and length, but part of it is due to something far less quantifiable: a motor and energy that few hoopers embody.

Reese also has the best opponent effective field goal percentage (-7.7%) in the WNBA, meaning that opponents’ effective field goal percentage is 7.7% worse when Reese is on the floor compared to when she is off of it. Opponents’ true shooting percentage is 6.2% worse when Reese is on the floor than off of it, which also leads the league, per Hoops Junkie.

On more defensive stat for you: opponents’ turnover rate per possession is 2.9% higher when Reese is on the floor than off of it, which is the third-best mark in the league. No matter how you slice it, Reese is among the league’s elite defenders, and should rightfully have a spot on the WNBA All-Defense team for the first time in her career.

Angel Reese just might be the greatest rebounder in WNBA history

While the defensive skill set is elite, it’s still not Reese’s defining quality. For the third straight season, Angel Reese has clearly been the WNBA’s best rebounder, this year averaging 12.1 boards per game. It’s a skill set that basketball fans have almost begun to take for granted, more focused on clipping her on-court snafus than recognizing they just might be watching the greatest rebounder in women’s basketball history.

The claim is no exaggeration.

As a rookie, Reese set the record for the highest single-season rebounding average in WNBA history (13.1). Her subsequent sophomore mark (12.6) was the second-highest rebounding average in league history. And she is the only player in WNBA history to average 12+ rebounds per game in back-to-back seasons.

With the Chicago Sky, Reese became the first WNBA player to record 20+ rebounds in three straight games.

And, as a member of the Atlanta Dream, Reese grabbed her 1,000th career rebound in 79 WNBA games — 10 faster than Tina Charles, who is the WNBA’s all-time rebounding leader.

So, while clips of the 6’4 Dream star go viral on Twitter accounts like BrickCenter, they should not distract fans from the fact that they are watching someone achieve history.

ESPN reporter Katie Barnes recently wrote a lengthy feature on Reese’s uncanny rebounding prowess, diving into how she’s become such an unparalleled rebounder.

“I’m not the biggest or the strongest,” Reese told Barnes. “I don’t have the highest vert.”

But Reese has a tenacity and instinct for the ball rarely seen in this sport.

“She has a very big rebounding radius,” said Dream head coach Karl Smesko. “Some people can rebound any ball that comes within 2 feet of them either way. Angel can probably get 8 to 10 feet either way.”

The other aspects of Reese’s game will improve with time. In the grand scheme of things, she’s only 24 years old. Her best days are almost definitely still ahead of her. And, for all the talk around Reese’s inefficiencies, she’s still averaging 15.6 points per game, the third-highest mark on her team.

But, offensive phenoms with limited defensive capabilities aren’t defined and discussed solely in the context of those limitations. Angel Reese, an All-Defense-level defender and a once-in-a-generation rebounder, shouldn’t be either.

Today, I now see banner ads in the WNBA app. This is new.

The Sky have signed former Creighton Blue Jay Morgan Maly to a developmental to replace Maddy Westbeld, who was recently poached by the Mercury. Maly averaged 18.7 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game during the offseason for Proteas in the Greek league.