The best part of Angel Reese’s showing during the Atlanta Dream’s Oct. 21 win over the Golden State Valkyries, in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals, wasn’t just her ability to follow up her history-making Game 2 (30 points, 16 rebounds, two blocks) with an equally dominant performance (21 points, 12 rebounds, three steals).
It was that she had fun doing it.
There was Reese with the 3-point "celly" and the too-small gesture, smiling wide as she dove across the baseline to save the ball on an errant pass. She was living her best basketball life, the sold-out Atlanta crowd her eager witnesses.
You must understand: This widespread respect and acclaim that has added buoyancy to Reese’s game? It’s all relatively new.
When Reese came into the league in 2024, it wasn’t just that fellow draftee Caitlin Clark had already been crowned the present and future GOAT, the one to whom all success – of her team, of the league – must be credited. Angel Reese – the McDonald’s All-American who went on to win the 2023 NCAA Women’s National Champion with the LSU Tigers and, as a result, found herself immediately cast as the villain in Clark’s hero arc – was deemed a fraud.
The burden may have been manageable had the detractors simply said she was a showboat with a bad attitude, courtesy of the “you can’t see me” hand wave given as Reese’s Tigers secured that ‘23 chip over Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes. But those critics – those haters – took it a bridge too far. They said she couldn't hoop.
Despite averaging a double-double (13.6 points and 13.1 rebounds) during her rookie season with the Chicago Sky, Reese's 39.1% field goal percentage was linked to a propensity for missing shots in the paint, at point-blank range. Those double-digit rebounds? The natural result of stretching her 6’4” frame to grab her own misses. “Me-bounds,” they called them. Every missed lay-up was part of a conspiracy to stat pad.
Reese's steep curve
Those two years in Chicago, with two different coaches and a floundering front office that ultimately dealt her to the Dream in exchange for future draft picks, made Reese the subject of near-constant ridicule. Yes, there was the Reebok deal and the top-rated podcast, the fans dubbed "Reese’s Pieces." But for every social media post featuring a pair of fresh, new custom-painted kicks or a stat line showing yet another double-double, someone was in the comments just below, lowlight reel at the ready: There was Reese missing a layup and then another, Reese shooting an airball on the baseline and again from the perimeter.
Now, you must also understand: There is a steep learning curve in the W, and even the best college players don’t make the jump easily. It’s completely fair to say, then, that Chicago Sky Angel Reese wasn’t the Angel Reese you see today, the one potentially leading the Atlanta Dream to its first title in franchise history. But the raw material – the motor, the internal drive, the inherent belief in herself, naysayers be damned – was always there.
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Ultimately, no one is coddled to greatness. It takes both the good and the bad to become a winner who can will your team to win too. Clark may have gotten the early praise, the hand-holding and excuse-making, but her game is not better for it. While her fans blame everyone but Clark for her own deficiencies, Clark has become a great player against bad teams, a liability on defense and the fourth-best three-point shooter, by percentage, on her own Indiana Fever team.
What sports greats have in common
I don’t prefer the incessant comparisons of Reese and Clark. Still, I imagine that the two will be forever linked, thanks to that championship-game meeting in college, their simultaneous pro turns and the deep-seated need for Clark fans to find a foil for their favorite player. I also think there's something to be gleaned from their disparate trajectories in the league, even at this early stage.
As it turns out, all that stuff the self-gurus say about climbing smooth mountains is right. And if there is any upside to being looked down upon, it is the near-instant formation of the proverbial chip that every legend in every sport has had to carry. Seriously: Tom Brady doesn't become a seven-time champion without the stinging motivation of seeing six quarterbacks drafted before him, or the scouting reports that mocked his physique and said he had below-average arm strength.
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This external pressure is what’s missing most from Clark’s arrival and ascent in the WNBA. When you only hear that you’re already great, it’s hard to find the drive to actually become that.
As for Reese? Well, she’s seen that pressure in spades, and she’s dealt with it handily.
The benefits of being underrated
There’s this question I’ve seen a few times on social media, one of those informal polls meant to spark conversation and elicit critical introspection: Would you rather be overrated or underrated?
Unanimous takes don’t exist in online debates, and the responses to this query are as varied as one would expect. There is an understanding that to be overrated is to eventually be exposed, that starting at the peak means you can only go down. But there are those who argue that the early wins can cancel out the inevitable losses. The money, the fans, the friends in high places will soften the blow to come.
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I disagree. If I have the option to choose between over- or underrated, I’m choosing the latter every time. Based on the way she's weathered floods of criticism while consistently improving her game, I’d assume Reese would too.
Because when you’re underrated and overlooked but committed to getting better anyway, you eventually get to prove everybody wrong. You become the success story with the inspirational narrative, the underdog who comes out on top.
And in women's basketball, or any other sport, there is nothing more fun than that.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Angel Reese's evolution is the best part of WNBA Finals | Opinion