CHICAGO — Angel Reese’s rookie season of pro basketball surpassed nearly all expectations last year.
Selected by the Chicago Sky with the No. 7 pick of the 2024 draft, she became a WNBA All-Star and set records before her season got cut short by an injury — all while helping the league soar to new heights in popularity after she and the Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark took their rivalry from the college ranks to the pros.
One thing Reese didn’t do was win. At least not the way she is accustomed to winning. That’s something she wants to change, starting with a marquee season opener at Indiana on May 17.
“I wasn’t used to that,” said Reese, who helped lead LSU’s women’s basketball program to its first NCAA Division I tournament title in 2023. “It just takes an adjustment. It’s something that you don’t want to get used to because you don’t want to get in a mindset, like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to be losing every night.’ We were right there every night.”
The Sky finished 10th in the WNBA’s 12-team standings with a 13-27 record last season and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2018. The disappointing results were despite getting significant contributions from Reese and fellow rookie Kamilla Cardoso from South Carolina, the No. 3 draft pick who was a prep standout at Chattanooga’s Hamilton Heights Christian Academy. The two young stars are back, and the team made major roster changes to give them some help.
Chicago fired Teresa Weatherspoon after one year as head coach and hired Tyler Marsh, an assistant for the Las Vegas Aces the past three years, to replace the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer.
The Sky also added veteran leadership for the court, including bringing back franchise assists leader Courtney Vandersloot — who played for Chicago from 2011-2022 before spending the past two years with the New York Liberty, who. won the 2024 WNBA title — and acquiring two-time WNBA All-Star Ariel Atkins from the Washington Mystics. Chicago hopes the additions will help Cardoso and Reese take their games to another level.
“She wants to compete, she wants to win, she’s somebody that puts that above everything else,” general manager Jeff Pagliocca said of Reese. “With all the time that she puts into building her brand and flying all over the world, she still has proven to us time and time again she puts basketball first.
“Only a competitive player is going to have all these things in her life that are so special but still want to be the greatest player she can be.”
Reese and Clark, the top draft pick and rookie of the year in 2024, helped change the landscape of the WNBA, drawing sellout crowds and record ratings while spurring debates about the sport and society. The rivals from LSU and Iowa showcased a style and swagger that captivated the nation when they were going at it in college; the Tigers beat the Hawkeyes for the title in 2023, but Clark’s crew ended Reese & Co.’s run in the NCAA Elite Eight in 2024.
Reese, who finished second to Clark in the rookie of the year voting, averaged 13.6 points and a league-record 13.1 rebounds. She set a WNBA record with double-doubles in 15 straight games and finished with 26, the most ever by a rookie.
Reese briefly held the mark for total rebounds with 446, only to miss the final six games with a wrist injury. While she was out, league MVP A’ja Wilson of the Aces finished with 451.
While the records piled up, though, so did the losses.
In two seasons at Maryland and two more at LSU, Reese’s teams lost a total of 20 games and never dropped more than two in a row.
The Sky, meanwhile, lost 12 of their final 14 games last season. They dropped seven in a row before beating the Los Angeles Sparks on Sept. 6, only to have Reese sustain a hairline fracture in her left wrist that required surgery. With their star sidelined, they won their next game but lost the final five.
“Obviously, that left a bad taste in my mouth,” she said.
Reese had a busy offseason, playing in the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league and trying to increase her range and develop into the sort of stretch power forward the Sky envision her becoming. She shot 39% last season and was just 3-of-16 on 3-pointers.
“We want her to be dynamic,” Marsh said. “We want her to be able to score inside. We want to be able to create space for her to have more one-on-one finishes inside and to not have to have to feel like she’s got to play in a crowd. We want to put the ball in her hands on the perimeter and allow her to facilitate and create off the dribble as well.”
Reese said the problem was more her hesitancy to take the shots than her ability to hit shots from the perimeter.
“I always just tell myself if I work out and make the shots, I might as well take them in the game,” she said.
Reese got a taste of the championship atmosphere when she sat courtside during the WNBA finals between New York and the Minnesota Lynx. She showed up for Game 5 wearing what looked like a custom outfit split down the middle with a Liberty jersey on her left side and Lynx jersey on the right.
Reese also excelled in Unrivaled, where her Rose BC team won the championship, though she missed the playoffs after hurting her surgically repaired wrist. She likes the makeup of the Sky and believes they will be difficult to beat now.
“I think we have the right pieces this year,” Reese said. “We have the great veteran leadership. We have coaches that just built a culture from the beginning and built the standards, so I’m excited.”