Before we get too far into this, as a reader you should know that I am both a fan of Angel Reese AND an Atlanta Dream fan. You may look at that an disregard my opinion completely, but what I refuse to do is to participate in false narratives to the detriment of the league as a whole. I am a huge WNBA fan, I feel as if my online presence and social media posts have both uplifted and glorified the WNBA, I’ve been a fan since Candace Parker stepped foot in the league, and I will be a fan long after Angel Reese decides to retire. There are some things that have been said over the last few years about Angel that are very much incorrect (in both directions, honestly) and I think the records needs to be set straight. This is just an honest conversation about an extraordinary player, because it’s become increasingly clear to me that the media machine has no idea how to talk about the WNBA players in an objective way.
The Bad
I always want the bad news first, so that’s where we’re going to start. The bad is glaringly bad: she does not have the ability to stretch the floor (15% career 3-point shooter), she isn’t nearly as efficient as you would like a post player to be (42% for her career compared to someone like A’ja Wilson who’s a career 50% from the field), and her amount of turnovers is more than problematic (3.1 turnovers a game for a career and 4.3 a game through 7 games of this season at the time of writing).
There is a silver lining in all of this though; like most young players, Angel has time to recover and improve. I am not a shot doctor and I’ve never worked as a coach, so far be it from me to point this out, but there is something broken in her release. From a viewer’s perspective, I think it’s something in her release point; she releases her shots roughly 85% of the way through the motion, and the remaining 15% is so volatile that it results in very efficient games and extremely inefficient games, and there really is no in-between. Just this season alone we’ve witnessed a 7/11 performance against the Dallas Wings, and a 1/8 performance against the Las Vegas Aces. If Angel wants to be in conversations with the best in the world, it starts with being more efficient and getting in the lab this summer with a shot mechanic.
If I’m being honest with myself, I could almost overlook the inefficiencies as a player if she was able to take care of the basketball. Over the past two seasons and part of the season this year, Angel has taken on more of a point forward responsibility in the team’s offense, and there’s a very good reason for that. Through just 71 games in her WNBA career she’s already 14th all-time in games with 15+ points, 10+ rebounds, and 5+ assists.
This strategy is clearly working because in the three Atlanta Dream games this year where Angel hits the 15 point mark, the team is undefeated and Angel’s averages have been All-W worthy.
Just when you thought that there wasn’t any more praise that could be given, you’d be wrong. Angel is currently in the top 10 of three the league’s five main stat categories for frontcourt players: 1st in rebounds per game (obviously), 5th in assists per game, and 8th in steals per game, all while chipping in 13 points a night. For all the good that she’s producing, the bad is weighing down her own potential along with the team’s. I’m a big stickler for turnovers, and if I’m going to be critical of someone else that we’ll talk about in this article (and believe me, I have), we have to hold our favorite players to the same standard. I know that Angel is aware of these flaws in her game, and I also know that she’ll be working on them and coming back better than ever.
The Good
I mentioned it a bit during The Bad section, but her strengths are in an elite class. She’s an elite rebounder with nearly 13 per game for her career, she would still league the league in rebounds if you took away the rebounds on her own missed shots, and she’s really become a fantastic multi-positional defender, so much so that she (rightly) belongs in Defensive Player of the Year conversations this early into the season.
People will often look to a team’s record while Angel is playing and use that as a detractor to her play, but those people do not watch basketball, or at the very least, do no understand it. Those Chicago Sky teams were not only fundamentally flawed, but were also dealing with so much turmoil that I would argue NONE of the best young talent in the league would thrive there. Sure, if you threw A’ja on the squad she would probably will them to a playoff spot, but Paige Bueckers, Sonia Citron, or Caitlin Clark? I don’t think they get it done. So it would be incredibly lazy to suggest that the teams were losing because Angel was on the floor. Many people have, and that speaks to my issue on how Angel is covered in this league.
The part of her game that I appreciate the most is her playmaking ability. We were able to see it a little bit last year with the Sky, and we saw it during her two stints in Unrivaled, but now that she has the likes of Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray on her team her playmaking chops have been on full display. Who knew that if you had good players on your team that those passes you make could lead to made baskets?
All of these things are works in progress as well. She’s two years and three weeks into her professional career; she’s only going to get better from here. Maybe not this year, but very soon I expect her to be in MVP conversations. With her two-way ability, he playmaking chops, and her impact on winning, I find it hard to believe that this level of player will never get one of those illustrious awards eventually.
The Issue
One of by biggest issues with what the WNBA media and it’s fans have done to Angel and her PR is pretty simple: too much in both directions. Fans of Angel have gone to bat for her many times when she is unfairly criticized, which to be clear they absolutely should. Twitter accounts like The Real App only ever use her name for engagement farming more often than not it’s to diminish her accomplishments by highlighting the inefficient shooting or the egregious turnovers. There is absolutely a time and place for criticism in the sports world, but when they’re blurring out other player’s FG%, it’s clear to me that they’re playing favorites which is more than cowardly.
Then you have accounts like Underdog WNBA posting highlight reels of her games that, for some reason, include turnovers on the stat line. Name ONE other time that you’ve seen a stat line include a turnover by a player that wasn’t intended to be negative.
The fans, in return, have pushed so hard the opposite way that they are putting her in conversations that she isn’t ready to be in. After three games I began to see narratives that were comparing her to A’ja Wilson, the reining Finals and regular season MVP. As I said at the beginning, I am a fan of Angel but I refuse to put that kind of pressure on her this early into her career. If we were in year 8 and she still hasn’t won any real hardware, and her deficiencies as a player haven’t disappeared? Sure. I’ll be holding her accountable, but this is the first time in her professional career that she’s had a competent team around her; allow her the time and grace to find herself within the flow of the game and let her prove that she does eventually belong in those lofty conversations.
My BIGGEST issue, in all actuality, is how “fans” of the WNBA have treated her strictly based on her race. If you’ve never seen any of my YouTube videos or shorts on TikTok, I will spoil it now; I am a pasty white guy from Appalachia. Far be it from me to be the one to point it out, but the way that the national media and fans talk about Angel versus how they talk about Caitlin Clark is extremely one sided, and often times racist.
Just yesterday at the time writing this article, Caitlin Clark (after a poor performance against the Portland Fire) was recorded in a heated exchange with Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White.
What preceded this was Caitlin getting her ass beat by the Portland Fire; she put up a measly 6 points, shot 1/7 from the floor, 0/2 from deep, and was directly responsible for at least 17 points given up as the primary defender. To her credit only had one turnover which is significantly more rare than her having more than 5 turnovers in a game. This is just another example of her uncoachability and the lack of self accountability that she’s displayed over the last few years. The worst part of this whole deal is that Stephanie White may get fired for these continued headbutts with Caitlin, and White is 100000% in the right. All she wants for her star player to do is to try on defense and she can’t even do that.
Now just imagine if Angel Reese did that. Just imagine the amount of hate online she would receive. Imagine the Washington Post or USA Today articles asking about her commitment to winning, or her attitude. Imagine the worst people on the planet calling for her head for speaking to a white coach like that. Again, far be it for the pasty white guy to point this out, but if Angel did that people would be calling for her head. What may be worse is if Angel was white, it wouldn’t even be a headline.
I very much dislike that Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have been intertwined, and will be connected for the remainder of their careers. Whoever did it first needs to be punched in the mouth, because if we were being honest with ourselves, this isn’t the “Magic vs. Bird” parallel that everyone likes to pretend it is. If anything, at least this far in their careers, this is a Trae Young vs. Joakim Noah debate, but that doesn’t get the clicks now does it?
I won’t speak to what it means to be “authentically black” because… well, you know. What I do know is that Angel is being punished in the media for being authentically herself, and if she was a different race, the way that she talks about herself and her play wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar. The WNBA has come very far in terms of it’s product, it’s mainstream appeal, and how it is perceived. This is a league dominated by queer women of color, and for the most part, race has never been that big of an issue. That is, until their “great white hope” got into the league. Is it necessarily her fault that her fans are the worst perpetrators of racism and sexism? No. I would not place that blame directly on her shoulders, but she hasn’t quelled their vitriol either. Caitlin has been allowed to do whatever the hell she feels like for far too long, and honestly I don’t know if it can be reversed. She doesn’t say anything about her fans and the way that they act because she knows that if she does, they will stop supporting her. They’ll stop showing up to games, stop buying the jerseys, and switch from State Farm to Progressive.
Angel has done nothing but be herself since she stepped in the league. Yeah, she said that she wants to be one of the greats. So what? Michael Jordan and LeBron James have said that a billion times and it never mattered. All of a sudden Angel says it and she’s being brash or cocky? Ridiculous. Honestly, it reminds me of a time that Tiger Woods was being interviewed early into his career and he said that he wasn’t just showing up to the course to compete, and that he was there to win. The interviewer just laughed and said that it was brash, and topped it off with a “you’ll learn [how hard it is to win]”. Just incase you aren’t a golf fan – he never learned how hard it was to win, and I’d argue that if he didn’t have that mentality he may be a forgotten name in the history of golf.
As someone who cares deeply about the growth of this league it’s important to call out the bad behavior seen in the media and fans alike. For the fans, we have to stop putting Angel in conversations that she doesn’t belong in yet. All it does is give credence to her detractors, and in turn, makes their anger and hate louder.
To the detractors, take a deep look inside yourself and realize that Angel Reese is not the reason that your life sucks.
Angel is a great player with deficiencies just like any other player in the world. To pretend like she is either the world’s best player or the world’s worst is dishonest and takes away from her ability as a player. Until we can all get on the same page about our favorite players, people who look down on the WNBA will always have the upper hand. Be honest about our favorites, and let their games do the talking.
I’ll be starting a bit of a mini-series about the more polarizing players in the league because, as you can see, I can be quite opinionated. Who is your favorite player in the league right now? Let me know in the comments!
Be kind. Tell somebody you love them.
Round The Game 
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