Anyone who knows anything about the game of basketball can look at Angel Reese and acknowledge that she is one hell of a player.
Not even two months into her rookie season with the Chicago Sky, the No. 7 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft already is putting up incredible numbers. She’s currently averaging 12.1 points and 10.2 rebounds per game, has achieved four double-doubles and became the first rookie this year to achieve 100 points and 100 rebounds.
All the while, she has shown incredible maturity and respect for herself, her teammates, her coach and her fellow competitors. The only thing one has to do is watch her play and come to the easy realization that she was destined for this due to her own mixture of fierceness, flair and flamboyance.
But if you know absolutely nothing about the game and/or have had long-standing hostilities towards the WNBA and women’s sports in general, then you see her as an epitomization of all that is supposedly wrong with sports and society at large. She is perceived as evil and a villain who has earned condemnation, whereas her contemporary Caitlin Clark is held up as the savior and a savant who needs protection.
Now let me abundantly clear, having covered Clark at Iowa over the last three years, she has rightfully earned all the accolades and adulation coming her way. She is one of the most exciting athletes of our time and has helped to grow the game. But she hasn’t done it by herself. There was Angel Reese right there with Clark from the 2023 NCAA national championship onward. Their intersecting paths to the pros have led many to declare this to be the Magic-Bird rivalry of women’s basketball.
But while Caitlin has been given her flowers, Angel has been given thorns.
Reese has had to endure racist death threats. She and her LSU teammates were referred to as “Louisiana hot sauce” by the Los Angeles Times. She and her Sky teammates were harassed outside a DC hotel. And she’s been accused of “assaulting” Clark during the June 16 Sky-Fever game when she tried to go for a block, ended up hitting Clark in the head and was assessed a flagrant foul. It is very clear when watching the replay that she was trying to go for the ball.
This is too much for a 22-year-old to handle, regardless of her social and cultural status.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, she doesn’t want to talk to the media. Frankly, who could blame her? It is one thing to critique her play and how it impacts the outcome of a game, but it is different to attack her personhood to the point where she is subjected to such vile and viciousness.
And again, this is largely coming from people who don’t know basketball and who have unfortunately used Clark as a vehicle to express their disdain for Reese and other Black women. The Williams Sisters, Surya Bonaly, Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Sha’Carri Richardson, Brittney Griner and other black women in sports have experienced some of the most heinous acts of misogynoir (anti-Black sexism and misogyny) by the likes of media, fans, commentators and trolls on social media.
But history has shown that these women ultimately solidify their place in history while staying true to themselves. And when all is said and done, that will be the case with Angel Reese. Her tremendous talent and audacious agency will triumph in the end. It would just be nice if we could recognize that now.