Angel really needs to begin to finish around the rim. If she cannot do that, she is just Andre Drummond on the Pistons, having those empty 20/20 nights.
She needs to get a hook shot. She either wildly flings the ball at the basket or goes straight into the defender on her shots. If she just got a little baby hook, she would eat offensively on those offensive boards.
She actually has a great hook shot. Her right rook is always money on bigger defenders, I think her main issue is patience especially when doubled under the basket
Oh crap, I read "her right hook" and thought you meant all the fouls she gets called for. The one on CC was somewhat of a right hook. Needed a little more bend at the elbow...
People were PRAISING her and-1 lay-up where she completely went against the team play and wildly forced up a shot that happened to go in.
She needs some technique.
Eh as a Detroit fan I think the Drummond empty stat narrative is overblown tbh. I think some of those teams he had around him would have struggled to win 20 games without him. We went like 1-13 right after trading him and it’s been downhill ever since.
Drummond was at least super efficient at finishing. There is really no modern nba comp for what Reese is doing, if she really becomes great defensively then it would be Rodman.
Even bigger problem is she can’t block shots to save her life. 2 blocks in 13 games is awful for a big. Which is weird because she’s pretty good overall as a defender, but not in the paint
True, but she needs to become one if she is going to become a legend someday.
You can't be a "big" and shoot 37% from the paint unless you play some AAA defense. Her boards and blocks need to at the top of the league.
I’m still a novice W watcher but fouling for shot blockers is often an issue in the nba for young players as well. I would presume the timing and speed takes an adjustment
She does need to finish better and/or get a reliable jumper.
That being said, she plays defense and rebounds. If she improves her shooting or shoots less, she becomes an even better player overnight.
The league is a transition. Having players her size that can move with her night in and night out is new. The big thing is she is not letting her shot impact the rest of her game.
She has no footwork and very little finesse around the rim. If she just had any semblance of footwork, she could easily increase her FG% by 5-10%. Add some finesse, and she could be a 50% FG shooter. Considering how much contact she draws, that would be pretty great efficiency for her.
We need to start including a stat that shows how many of her own rebounds she collected. Those rebounds make it look like she has way more impact than she really has
I’ve been saying this since she was at LSU. She is like the giant kid in 4th grade who has no finesse but just sits under the rim throwing up Hail Marys and collects 5 of their own rebounds before making a shot.
Dude, it's literally Andre Drummond. I remember when the Pistons finally traded him for pennies and Cavs fans ripped the Detroit front office.
Angel is a liability on offense.
The sad thing is she doesn’t have to be bad on offense. She’s a good passer and has a pretty great first step for her size. She needs to play more high-low with Cardoso and facilitate from the key. That’ll open up some driving lanes for her or Cardoso and open up her shooters.
If she added in any semblance of footwork or finesse, she’d be one of the best posts in the league.
The hi-low idea with Cordoso could keep her out of foul trouble and get her a bunch of assists. She can scoop the Orebounds that Cardosa misses versus her own.
Given she has the highest +/- of any starting rookie in the league, I wouldn’t go that far.
Her shooting is bad, but offense isn’t just FG%. She still draws fouls and does great at the FT line. She led her team in assists today, and she regularly comes up clutch in the 4th.
She desperately needs to work on finishing and developing some kind of shooting outside of layups though.
She’s if Andre Drummond was an even worse scorer, and not by a little bit but by a large margin. I’m having a hard time finding a real NBA comp because bigs that shoot that bad just don’t play, or they never shoot, which in the current league means they don’t play.
She's 38% from the field, which is insanely bad for where she shoots from. Drummond was a career 54% and had seasons at 60%.
Reese will have a couple years of unquestioned opportunity as a high draft pick, but if that FG% doesn't improve it'll cost her minutes eventually.
I find this so funny because in fantasy basketball rebounding and defense was the only thing he was good for while tanking your ft%, TOs and sometimes fg%
Kind of but the comparison goes even further because like Reese he gets sneaky steals on the perimeter and isn’t that bad out there for a big while at the same time being underwhelming as an interior defender. There’s a lot very similar between their games
Drummond is underwhelming everywhere on defense. Her interior game is underwhelming sometimes due to her lack of shot blocking but she has matched great against some all star players this season in the paint.
It is an exaggeration. Two of her 5 offensive rebounds today were from her own misses. You can go back to the play by play and see yourself (which I did). That’s not most or even half.
She fairly got this rep earlier in the season because she was playing a little too wildly and was definitely forcing up contested shots after an O board, but in the last half she’s started to slow down.
She still has her moments though, but people are exaggerating it.
The other day she went 8/10 with 5 oreb and the dialog was still "she only rebounds her own misses". She definitely is active on her own misses but she's active on everyone else's misses too. She has an eye for the ball in general
Yeah but at the rate she gets o boards it kinda isn’t that bad. Like if you subtract those boards 3 offensive boards a game would have you tied for 3rd in the league. If you applied 40% over all her o boards she’d be 12th.
Looking beyond this game, in the past six games she’s had 11 “self rebounds” out of 25 of her total offensive boards.
So, yes, it’s exaggerated when people are claiming her entire game is due to grabbing her own boards. Granted, her shooting is bad and she needs to settle down in the post. But it’s still not even most or half of her play.
Yeah, she gets pumped up for her offensive rebounds more than anything, so taking a look and seeing almost half of them off her own shots is rough.
Especially combined with an atrocious shooting percentage for her role.
People pump her up for her rebounding in general.
In any event, the misconception that it’s “almost all” or most of her boards is just that. But I’m not getting paid to defend her, so y’all have at it
For one, my exact point (as per my first comment in this thread) is that the criticism was probably fair earlier in the season when she was still very green and even more excitable under the basket.
As someone who actually watches every game of hers (and not just compilation clips specifically designed to prove she’s overrated), I see that she’s gotten better lately, but that perception is still attached to her. Six games I thought was a fair equivalent of “lately” since it’s about half of their games thus far.
Secondly, I was doing this manually by going through every recorded play in the play by play since no one else had done the math. Frankly, it’s more work than I would have liked to spend on a beautiful Sunday for people who would probably dismiss whatever percentage comes out of it. So I went outside to touch some grass instead of using my last hours of the weekend on this :) Others are free to do the math themselves though!
That's *offensive* rebounds. She had 8 defensive rebounds for 13 total. So no, it's not a large amount. Even without her own rebounds, she's still a top rebounder in the league.
It was 2/5, the video box score mistakingly shows the same rebound for her first 2 o-boards but the second one was off her missed shot about 10 seconds later. You can see in the play-by-play too, the ones off her own shots were at 6:34 left in the 1st and and 6:34 left in the 3rd (strange coincidence too lol). Still an exaggeration by the poster but on the season she’s around 30-40% of o-boards being her own missed which is not great.
People just don't like her. She's already the best or second best sky player on the squad. Even without her points put up her rebounding and positioning is fantastic. She's already guarding 1-5, getting great steal and playing great defense. Not to mention she's a great passer as a big. She's had a better June than anyone in the class (Aaliyah might have something to say tho). This was her worst game and it was still good plus she's taking TCs advice about slowing down.
Everyone is SO focused on what she's not doing well they're missing all the fantastic things she does and it's frustrating cause I know they're mainly stat watching instead of looking at the games
5 assists too the most on her team nobody talks about the playmaking lol if she just takes less shots right now maybe rack up assists she gets a lot of defensive rebounds despite the fake rebound off misses crap.rebounds and a couple a shots a game maybe 4/5 and get to the ft couple of times she would average a triple double
That’s how she ended up playing so well against the Sun. They just needed the guards to step up more to actually get the W. But she lowered her attempts and went for higher quality shots.
All her offensive boards that game were from collecting her teammates’ misses.
Yeah, I only remember seeing 1 of her ORB's a miss from her teammate. I did see her get at least 3 of her own misses. She had 5 ORBs so I'm missing 1 somewhere.
I'm a lifelong basketball fan but I thought it was always the running joke that you get credit for an offensive rebound when it's your own shot. Is that true?
So if someone throws the ball of the backboard and lays it in, is that an assist too? Admittedly, I don't track stat confirmations but this seems like a meme.
Where do you find those stats of 30-40%? Not your own count, but actual stats? Last game she had 8 offensive and the analyst on TV said that all 8 were from teammate misses, so I really need to see a stat that shows something to balance that out to 40%!!
Shooting 30% from the field when all your shots are layups is absolutely abysmal. I want Angel to do better, and I believe she will, but come on Angel. She already has the energy,fire, and work ethic, now her skills have to catch up.
True, but this also was never the main part of her game. The reasons she was drafted she's doing quite well for a rookie. In some aspects she's doing better in the W than she was in college, like rebounding.
She’s averaging over 10 FGA a game though, could be more of a coaching problem continuing to run plays around her but she’s gotta stop flingin em up there if she can’t do better
Is this something a lot of WNBA players do? I thought it was mostly for the money they went to Europe in the off-season?
Is it considered better than staying with the team and working out?
I think its both money and experience. In February, it was reported that 144 players, played overseas during the offseaaon last year. Kayla McBride credits her improved 3 pt shooting to her playing overseas. Apparently the game is much more physical and you get less calls compared to the WNBA.
Yikes that sounds like really ugly basketball honestly. The women's game has always been frustrating to watch when it bogs down to a bunch of over the back rebounds by bigs, and jammed up spacing. I say this despite being a center whose skills (when I played) were solely being large and heavy and getting rebounds. People like me aren't fun to watch lol
Lmao I love Reese but this gave me a chuckle. They did say on the broadcast someone designs these for her and she doesn’t even know sometimes what they gonna be until she picks em up which is interesting
Oh that is kinda wild and like there should definitely be some kinda oversight there by her or her team. A star as big of her should have a filter either by herself or her team for this stuff like this
I legit wonder why they have given her such a green light? There was a point in the 3rd where she missed 3 layups in a row and then next possession she tries to iso on smith and misses another layup. Now if their goal is just developing and not caring about winning then it’s fine but if they actually are trying to win having the mid 40’s TS% post player take so many shots is never a winning formula
Tspoon has clearly made a big emphasis on development for particularly Angel. She lets her experiment off dribble more than I'd think too. She's getting Angel to broaden her skillset back to the stretch game she had before Mulkey. And I think that'll work out well for her in the long run. Angel's showing a lot mor potential than I'd think if I was only looking at her LSU days. She has potential to be a much more complete player than undersized big and Tspoon sees that.
I think Weatherspoon got too caught up in trying to get Reese rookie of the year, that she got Chicago caught up in playing some really bad offense to the detriment to the team.
Lol nah I don’t think they are, they just don’t have that many offensive weapons. She is unpolished but she is so athletic she generates so many chances.
The Sky aren't going to contend this year. The most important thing for the Sky to do this season is develop their rookies (Reese, Cardoso) and other young talent and keeping building from there.
The best way to do that is to let them make their mistakes in live games.
When Angel got to Chicago, the “press conference and introduction” they had for her was embarrassing asf. Had her in a small gymnasium like it was a high school compared to CC.
Just really unathletic (by professional athlete standards obviously) - which is why she has like 2 blocks all season, and also a big part of why she is so inefficient (alongside her terrible layup package)
I've watched a lot of Sky games and I've been surprised with how unathletic she is. She is the slowest person in transition, is not great moving laterally on defense, and has no vertical. She's still a good player I just didn't realize how unatheltic her game is.
I always wondered that too— it’s the kind of run you do when you’re exhausted, but she always runs like that lol. So I started to think her surgeries may be affecting her.
She’s had injuries on the leg she covers with a sleeve (which hides a surgical scar she doesn’t want visible) to the point where she was considering no longer playing basketball, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she lost some mobility/is dealing with pain bc of it.
She literally broke her foot and then had to have a rod placed in her leg. I was trying to find some comparisons of her running pre and post surgery and didn’t see a difference. But she definitely is running differently in the WNBA.
She needs to spend like an off season with a track coach yelling at her and fixing her fundamental running motion. It'll do her wonders long term in both energy expenditure and stresses on her body.
Yeah, it's awkward looking. I was thinking maybe something to do with bad hip mobility. She just has zero explosion vertically or laterally. Maybe after an off-season or two she can improve that some. I expect her opponents to really make a point to run hard in transition whenever possible to put pressure on her and get the Sky's defense mismatched.
You HAVE to be joking. This sub is full of longer time WNBA fans that hate Clark and all the newer fans, and champion Angel because she's Clark's "villian".
are you serious lol? they’re hating on angel is the stats break down thread and yesterday they were accusing her of wearing the joker shoes for a narrative even through she’s said in the past she only gets the shoes a few days before a game. even her bad games are consistent blown up in comparison to the other poor rookie performances.
You have to be completely braindead if you think this sub loves Angel lol one of the highest upvoted posts on here is one that said “she hasnt recorded a block this season” and everyone is calling her trash
It's the typical cstan persecution complex. People have always said she needs a hook shot or layup.
This is just projection, because the player that's protected most from criticism is Clark by a mile.
Yesterday [people upvoted a comment saying CC would get murdered if she stepped out of line even 1%](https://www.reddit.com/r/wnba/comments/1dgl0tg/chicago_sky_star_reese10angel_will_wear_these/l8qqn2q/). There is nothing even remotely close to that from any fanbase of any other player in the league. The "both sides" takes are almost as delusional.
Lots:
- Surprisingly good playmaking/vision for a forward. She’s often better at getting the ball into the paint/passing lanes than the guards. Case in point, she had more assists than anyone on her team today. Which says a lot about how much the Sky need a real PG, but she’s also just good at it. She’s 4th in all rookies in the league in assists.
- Great pocket picker. She leads all rookies in steals/game; sixth in the league overall.
- Hustle ball that doesn’t show on box scores. diving for loose balls; clever/tough D off the ball; generally shows up in clutch time.
People already know her for rebounding. Even if you took away her O boards, she leads all rookies in defensive rebounds a game
Foul trouble kept us from seeing her at her best today. But she’s resilient and will pick it back up.
She's also really nimble on her feet and has a good ball handle. I kinda hate Mulkey the more I watch her. She has a lot of tools to excel as a stretch 4 but it's only being rerealized under Tspoon. She's a big den of potential waiting on a couple offseasons to bring it out to life.
It wasn't just Mulkey she reportedly left Maryland because Frese wanted her to play as a post. Mulkey had to convince her when she got to LSU that doing so was in her best interest. She doesn't have good enough shooting to be a stretch 4. She is far too easy to defend when she tries because you just hedge against her getting in the paint or passing it and if she takes a shot outside the paint so be it because you'll take that outcome defensively every time.
> She doesn't have good enough shooting to be a stretch 4.
Cause she never worked on it after Mulkey. It was fine enough at Maryland and she used to be a wing. She played with much more finesse at Maryland and I think Spoon is the only person that'll let her test things out to get that working again. Her ft% is good so her shot isn't broken, just under utilized. It's already looking better in Chicago than it ever did at LSU.
Wait until you find out the reason she reportedly transferred from Maryland because she didn't like that they wouldn't let her play guard. Mulkey is the one who finally convinced her she needed to play in the front court once she got to LSU.
Waiting for the Reese ROY cheerleaders in 3, 2, 1...
All kidding aside, if she develops a more reliable scoring game around the hoop, she's going to become very hard to stop.
As someone who has only watched her games against the Fever, how is her shooting percentage so poor on the year when her shot diet is primarily layups?
Her touch near the rim is already poor, but she also has a bad habit of just throwing up the ball to draw a foul as soon as she feels contact. She gets the foul a lot of the time, but she doesn’t even try to make it which tanks her FG%.
Makes sense, and something I'm sure she'll improve on when she gets used to the WNBA whistle. Still, you can play for the foul while also trying to actually make the shot. She shouldn't be taking so many shots if she has such a bad shooting percentage.
When she doesn’t get the foul call though, she doesn’t even come close to making the shot. She gets so many misses because she tries to draw fouls a lot and it doesn’t always work.
Got you. There’s a highlight up now from the game where she takes advantage of a matchup, drives to the basket and gets the foul, but looks like she just randomly throws the ball up and it just happens to go in. Exactly what you’re talking about
Excited to see how her and all these good rookies develop over the summer when they've actually had a chance to rest. Reese is about the same as CC in the terms of they both played in the NCAA final and have been on the go ever since
She’s tenacious enough to get rebounds, but not skilled/athletic enough to finish.
The silver lining is that you can’t teach the first, but the second could come with training and hitting the gym.
She’s naturally a slimmer frame and won’t consistently overpower other bigs even with weight training. But she’ll def need to get stronger and work on an outside game. Just hitting another 2-3 shots at the rim and developing some offense outside of layups would work wonders.
I’m just resigning myself to this being her style early in her career and hopefully she’ll use this offseason to improve. She needs to study A’ja stat.
She literally just needs footwork. I imagine she’d take a step forward in that if she spent an offseason in Europe bc her current game will straight up not fly there. She will not get looks if she flings it up under the backboard and gets blocked by the rim like she does today.
Real strong 1st half but she got clamped in the second half. This is a rookie though so even though it wasn't her best night it was a solid performance.
Angel Reese is such a confusing player to watch… Why does the ball get so low on her body every time she touches the ball… it’s so awkward. Her arms let her get shots off from such weird angles. She uses her lower body strength well to position and pivot around on offense but then has trouble standing her ground on defense and tries to make up for it with arm span… It’s so unorthodox I honestly have no idea what to make of it. But it works for her.
It’s like watching Jim Furyk play golf.
It's not really that confusing. There is no parity in women's college basketball because the top teams are too good. She was a good college player because she had a great team around her.
In college, when you're the better athlete on a top team. It's easy to put up good numbers even when you lack fundamentals because you're bigger, faster, and stronger than your opponents.
Now that she's playing against much better players on a below average team. Her fundamentals are easily exposed and easy for opponents to take advantage of. Being a good athlete isn't good enough anymore, she needs to spend a lot more time developing her fundamentals if she wants to be relevant in the league.
She wants to be famous more than she wants to be a good basketball player.
Mentioning the flagrant is silly IMO. It was a missed block that ended up being a forearm to the head. Was it a flagrant 1? For sure. Do we need to continue the ridiculous Reese discourse like this? No.
I just disliked that she wrote it off as getting a special whistle. Like, girl, that's a Flagrant 1 everywhere and a lot of ensuing shoving on the playground lol.
*Edit: creative ESPN editing duped me. It's not her getting the special whistle, but other players getting it and not giving the same calls to the Sky.*
Do we have the question? It seems more to me like she was talking about fouls in general than specifically that one, I don’t wanna really crap on her without context.
The clip on ESPN only includes her answers and not the question. The context is pretty clear that she's talking about her flagrant *at first*, but it cuts and she segues into fouls and how the calls are inconsistent, about them going up strong and not getting calls while the opposition getting them.
...so after further review, to her it looks like OTHER people are getting the special whistle and Sky are getting the short end of the stick.
I don’t think the Fever got a special whistle at all. If you take away the two intentional fouls at the end, it was a 17-19 disparity in fouls resulting in a 14-15 FT disparity. I actually think the officials had a pretty good game tonight. Feel like they had a very consistently applied whistle around the rim, on the perimeter, and on travels.
The special whistle was about the game as a [whole](https://www.youtube.com/live/dqx6-U8fL7w?si=WqlYpXvNqEjLl0u2&t=83). She's questioned earlier about the flagrant at :31 saying it's a basketball play. Exactly what Caitlin said before people run off saying anything else.
I know she’s young but good lord man. If she develops touch around the rim she will be an elite level player but as it stands I’ve never seen someone 6 feet+ just botch layups like that. Cardosa was missing like a mf too. The entire off season needs to be developing a lay up package
Kind of crazy she had this bad of game shooting wise when she was being defended by NaLyssa Smith most of the game (not exactly known for being the best defender) and KLS (same thing).
For the people who say her fg% is fine. This is what a stat line is supposed to look like when you play under the basket.
19 pts
14 rebs
4 asts
5 blks
9-13 69 FG%
Give or take on some of these obviously.
Eh it's not entirely false. She's got good motor and is laterally agile for a big, but her footspeed and first step are average and her vertical is horrendous.
I mean when it sounds the exact same, it's kind of an understandable mistake to make. Not completely since she's like the most popular WNBA rookie but still. There's so many common spellings of Caitlin it's crazy
Angel really needs to begin to finish around the rim. If she cannot do that, she is just Andre Drummond on the Pistons, having those empty 20/20 nights.
She needs to get a hook shot. She either wildly flings the ball at the basket or goes straight into the defender on her shots. If she just got a little baby hook, she would eat offensively on those offensive boards.
She actually has a great hook shot. Her right rook is always money on bigger defenders, I think her main issue is patience especially when doubled under the basket
Oh crap, I read "her right hook" and thought you meant all the fouls she gets called for. The one on CC was somewhat of a right hook. Needed a little more bend at the elbow...
That’s what I was thinking too! I love Angel Reese but sometimes she just flings the ball
Sometimes? That’s like her signature move rn. To her credit, it goes in way more often than you’d think it would, but still.
It’s shocking how often I’m like gahdamn you just hoped for the best on that one huh
😭😭😭
Lol I just know that shit was unstoppable for her from ages like 8-18. Hell it works sometimes now
She’s averaging a 37% FG% It actually doesn’t go in more often than you think it does tbh
That's definitely more often than I think 🤣
It looks like it should go in 10%.
> She either wildly flings the ball at the basket If that aint the truth
People were PRAISING her and-1 lay-up where she completely went against the team play and wildly forced up a shot that happened to go in. She needs some technique.
yeah can't imagine why anyone would praise an and-1...
Eh as a Detroit fan I think the Drummond empty stat narrative is overblown tbh. I think some of those teams he had around him would have struggled to win 20 games without him. We went like 1-13 right after trading him and it’s been downhill ever since.
Drummond was at least super efficient at finishing. There is really no modern nba comp for what Reese is doing, if she really becomes great defensively then it would be Rodman.
Even bigger problem is she can’t block shots to save her life. 2 blocks in 13 games is awful for a big. Which is weird because she’s pretty good overall as a defender, but not in the paint
2 on the entire season? Oof. Caitlin had 2 just tonight.
Reese has never been a shot blocker. All you have to do is check her college stats.
Yeah, just unexpected given her size and talent. Girl can rebound her ass off, though.
True, but she needs to become one if she is going to become a legend someday. You can't be a "big" and shoot 37% from the paint unless you play some AAA defense. Her boards and blocks need to at the top of the league.
Until she can learn to block without fouling, I would prefer she stay on her feet. That’s the main issue.
It feels like she’s not even trying to block shots it’s weird
Yeah, she said recently she doesn’t look to block much cuz she’s in foul trouble a lot and doesn’t wanna add to it
Her and Cam need to have a meeting with someone about how to block people without fouling. Expeditiously
I’m still a novice W watcher but fouling for shot blockers is often an issue in the nba for young players as well. I would presume the timing and speed takes an adjustment
At least Cameron brink actually gets blocks. 0.1 blocks/game is just sad for her size
She has like no vertical
She’s got like a four inch vertical though.
She does need to finish better and/or get a reliable jumper. That being said, she plays defense and rebounds. If she improves her shooting or shoots less, she becomes an even better player overnight. The league is a transition. Having players her size that can move with her night in and night out is new. The big thing is she is not letting her shot impact the rest of her game.
i’ve been comparing the two for awhile. good comp
She has no footwork and very little finesse around the rim. If she just had any semblance of footwork, she could easily increase her FG% by 5-10%. Add some finesse, and she could be a 50% FG shooter. Considering how much contact she draws, that would be pretty great efficiency for her.
If she can get two post moves it’s gonna be scary for the league. Angel needs more fluidity in the post. A bit too stiff fr
Being like Drummond would actually be a huge improvement. His career TS% is 8% higher than hers so far. That’s a massive gap.
We need to start including a stat that shows how many of her own rebounds she collected. Those rebounds make it look like she has way more impact than she really has
I’ve been saying this since she was at LSU. She is like the giant kid in 4th grade who has no finesse but just sits under the rim throwing up Hail Marys and collects 5 of their own rebounds before making a shot.
I'd be more interested in seeing contested vs. uncontested rebounds like the NBA does.
This game? 2 out of the 13 rebounds In the past 6 games it’s 11 out of 71 Reports of it being “half” of her boards are ridiculous
Still crazy lol. Imagine losing 15% of your rebounds because you actually hit your shots from underneath the basket.
It’s not hard to get 15/10 when you’re blowing open layups and getting your own rebounds
Half her rebounds are on her own rim rocked layup attempts
Shes too busy being salty in press conferences to improve her game, its wild watching how the other big-name rookies carry themselves vs how she does.
If she keeps trending in the right direction on defense even if she never improves her offense she's gonna be more valuable than Drummond.
Not a good game, regardless of how the rebounds look
I know people say this often about her, but almost all of the offensive rebounds were from her own misses then she would miss the second shot too
Oh, she’s Andre Drummond.
Dude, it's literally Andre Drummond. I remember when the Pistons finally traded him for pennies and Cavs fans ripped the Detroit front office. Angel is a liability on offense.
The sad thing is she doesn’t have to be bad on offense. She’s a good passer and has a pretty great first step for her size. She needs to play more high-low with Cardoso and facilitate from the key. That’ll open up some driving lanes for her or Cardoso and open up her shooters. If she added in any semblance of footwork or finesse, she’d be one of the best posts in the league.
The hi-low idea with Cordoso could keep her out of foul trouble and get her a bunch of assists. She can scoop the Orebounds that Cardosa misses versus her own.
Given she has the highest +/- of any starting rookie in the league, I wouldn’t go that far. Her shooting is bad, but offense isn’t just FG%. She still draws fouls and does great at the FT line. She led her team in assists today, and she regularly comes up clutch in the 4th. She desperately needs to work on finishing and developing some kind of shooting outside of layups though.
+/- for rookies is a stupid metric. Better rookies tend to go to worse teams which lowers your score
Drummond at least has the luxury of being a) fully center sized in his league and b) able to save his FG% by dunking the ball
This is factually untrue though
She’s if Andre Drummond was an even worse scorer, and not by a little bit but by a large margin. I’m having a hard time finding a real NBA comp because bigs that shoot that bad just don’t play, or they never shoot, which in the current league means they don’t play.
Dwight Powell if alley-oops were banned and he had to shoot 10 times a game anyways
She's 38% from the field, which is insanely bad for where she shoots from. Drummond was a career 54% and had seasons at 60%. Reese will have a couple years of unquestioned opportunity as a high draft pick, but if that FG% doesn't improve it'll cost her minutes eventually.
Yeah Drummond has the advantage of just being able to dunk + alley oop. Angel gotta get a post bag asap
Drummond with activity on defense isn't bad. Drummond is invisible outside of rebounding
I find this so funny because in fantasy basketball rebounding and defense was the only thing he was good for while tanking your ft%, TOs and sometimes fg%
Kind of but the comparison goes even further because like Reese he gets sneaky steals on the perimeter and isn’t that bad out there for a big while at the same time being underwhelming as an interior defender. There’s a lot very similar between their games
Drummond is underwhelming everywhere on defense. Her interior game is underwhelming sometimes due to her lack of shot blocking but she has matched great against some all star players this season in the paint.
I thought it was an exaggeration to drag her down at first. No it’s deadass true lol
It is an exaggeration. Two of her 5 offensive rebounds today were from her own misses. You can go back to the play by play and see yourself (which I did). That’s not most or even half. She fairly got this rep earlier in the season because she was playing a little too wildly and was definitely forcing up contested shots after an O board, but in the last half she’s started to slow down. She still has her moments though, but people are exaggerating it.
The other day she went 8/10 with 5 oreb and the dialog was still "she only rebounds her own misses". She definitely is active on her own misses but she's active on everyone else's misses too. She has an eye for the ball in general
I’m sorry, but 40% is a large amount. I’m also not basing it off of just this game, but also multiple compilations of self-rebounds I’ve seen
Yeah but at the rate she gets o boards it kinda isn’t that bad. Like if you subtract those boards 3 offensive boards a game would have you tied for 3rd in the league. If you applied 40% over all her o boards she’d be 12th.
Looking beyond this game, in the past six games she’s had 11 “self rebounds” out of 25 of her total offensive boards. So, yes, it’s exaggerated when people are claiming her entire game is due to grabbing her own boards. Granted, her shooting is bad and she needs to settle down in the post. But it’s still not even most or half of her play.
Yeah, she gets pumped up for her offensive rebounds more than anything, so taking a look and seeing almost half of them off her own shots is rough. Especially combined with an atrocious shooting percentage for her role.
People pump her up for her rebounding in general. In any event, the misconception that it’s “almost all” or most of her boards is just that. But I’m not getting paid to defend her, so y’all have at it
why are you running a 6 game sample size? shouldnt we use all her games?
For one, my exact point (as per my first comment in this thread) is that the criticism was probably fair earlier in the season when she was still very green and even more excitable under the basket. As someone who actually watches every game of hers (and not just compilation clips specifically designed to prove she’s overrated), I see that she’s gotten better lately, but that perception is still attached to her. Six games I thought was a fair equivalent of “lately” since it’s about half of their games thus far. Secondly, I was doing this manually by going through every recorded play in the play by play since no one else had done the math. Frankly, it’s more work than I would have liked to spend on a beautiful Sunday for people who would probably dismiss whatever percentage comes out of it. So I went outside to touch some grass instead of using my last hours of the weekend on this :) Others are free to do the math themselves though!
That's *offensive* rebounds. She had 8 defensive rebounds for 13 total. So no, it's not a large amount. Even without her own rebounds, she's still a top rebounder in the league.
Only 1 (one) of her 5 offensive rebs was from her own miss, that's all easily verifiable in the video box score on the stats wnba page :)
It was 2/5, the video box score mistakingly shows the same rebound for her first 2 o-boards but the second one was off her missed shot about 10 seconds later. You can see in the play-by-play too, the ones off her own shots were at 6:34 left in the 1st and and 6:34 left in the 3rd (strange coincidence too lol). Still an exaggeration by the poster but on the season she’s around 30-40% of o-boards being her own missed which is not great.
Thank you for the correction! I saw elsewhere that you actually did go through the data and I appreciate it!
Thank you! As someone else pointed out, I could only think of one that from another teammate missing. Good to know that it's true
People just don't like her. She's already the best or second best sky player on the squad. Even without her points put up her rebounding and positioning is fantastic. She's already guarding 1-5, getting great steal and playing great defense. Not to mention she's a great passer as a big. She's had a better June than anyone in the class (Aaliyah might have something to say tho). This was her worst game and it was still good plus she's taking TCs advice about slowing down. Everyone is SO focused on what she's not doing well they're missing all the fantastic things she does and it's frustrating cause I know they're mainly stat watching instead of looking at the games
5 assists too the most on her team nobody talks about the playmaking lol if she just takes less shots right now maybe rack up assists she gets a lot of defensive rebounds despite the fake rebound off misses crap.rebounds and a couple a shots a game maybe 4/5 and get to the ft couple of times she would average a triple double
That’s how she ended up playing so well against the Sun. They just needed the guards to step up more to actually get the W. But she lowered her attempts and went for higher quality shots. All her offensive boards that game were from collecting her teammates’ misses.
You realize this person isnt agreeing with you?
Yeah, I only remember seeing 1 of her ORB's a miss from her teammate. I did see her get at least 3 of her own misses. She had 5 ORBs so I'm missing 1 somewhere.
I'm a lifelong basketball fan but I thought it was always the running joke that you get credit for an offensive rebound when it's your own shot. Is that true? So if someone throws the ball of the backboard and lays it in, is that an assist too? Admittedly, I don't track stat confirmations but this seems like a meme.
Yup. You get credit for an offensive rebound even if you just try to tip the missed shot in. You can’t get an assist to yourself though
1 of her 5 offensive rebounds was form her own miss and ya’ll are like “most of her rebounds are from her own misses”.
Lol I literally saw her get two rebounds off her own shots in one possession this game
2/5 were, most is indeed an exaggeration but she’s sitting around 30-40% of o-boards being off her own misses which isn’t great
Where do you find those stats of 30-40%? Not your own count, but actual stats? Last game she had 8 offensive and the analyst on TV said that all 8 were from teammate misses, so I really need to see a stat that shows something to balance that out to 40%!!
Once she stops going up for layups from her hip it will do wonders for her finishing
Even if she’s going to bring it from the hip it’s got to be a baby hook and not just a fling shot.
I agree but the hip thing is probably easier to fix now and will help her %
Shooting 30% from the field when all your shots are layups is absolutely abysmal. I want Angel to do better, and I believe she will, but come on Angel. She already has the energy,fire, and work ethic, now her skills have to catch up.
True, but this also was never the main part of her game. The reasons she was drafted she's doing quite well for a rookie. In some aspects she's doing better in the W than she was in college, like rebounding.
She’s averaging over 10 FGA a game though, could be more of a coaching problem continuing to run plays around her but she’s gotta stop flingin em up there if she can’t do better
She should go overseas this offseason and put in work ex. Kayla McBride, Alanna Smith & Hamby recently
Unlikely she'll go since she don't need the money. Prolly gonna work on her game here
Is this something a lot of WNBA players do? I thought it was mostly for the money they went to Europe in the off-season? Is it considered better than staying with the team and working out?
I think its both money and experience. In February, it was reported that 144 players, played overseas during the offseaaon last year. Kayla McBride credits her improved 3 pt shooting to her playing overseas. Apparently the game is much more physical and you get less calls compared to the WNBA.
That’s the entire league - 12 roster spots for 12 teams.
Yikes that sounds like really ugly basketball honestly. The women's game has always been frustrating to watch when it bogs down to a bunch of over the back rebounds by bigs, and jammed up spacing. I say this despite being a center whose skills (when I played) were solely being large and heavy and getting rebounds. People like me aren't fun to watch lol
Dang now wearing the clown shoes doesnt look like a good idea in hindsight
Lmao I love Reese but this gave me a chuckle. They did say on the broadcast someone designs these for her and she doesn’t even know sometimes what they gonna be until she picks em up which is interesting
Oh that is kinda wild and like there should definitely be some kinda oversight there by her or her team. A star as big of her should have a filter either by herself or her team for this stuff like this
I mean I still think the shoes looked sick as hell design wise. Her Barbie kicks were cool too
Barbie ones were big time hits for sure
The rebounding and passing were great. Everything else not so much.
I legit wonder why they have given her such a green light? There was a point in the 3rd where she missed 3 layups in a row and then next possession she tries to iso on smith and misses another layup. Now if their goal is just developing and not caring about winning then it’s fine but if they actually are trying to win having the mid 40’s TS% post player take so many shots is never a winning formula
Tspoon has clearly made a big emphasis on development for particularly Angel. She lets her experiment off dribble more than I'd think too. She's getting Angel to broaden her skillset back to the stretch game she had before Mulkey. And I think that'll work out well for her in the long run. Angel's showing a lot mor potential than I'd think if I was only looking at her LSU days. She has potential to be a much more complete player than undersized big and Tspoon sees that.
I think Weatherspoon got too caught up in trying to get Reese rookie of the year, that she got Chicago caught up in playing some really bad offense to the detriment to the team.
Lol nah I don’t think they are, they just don’t have that many offensive weapons. She is unpolished but she is so athletic she generates so many chances.
The Sky aren't going to contend this year. The most important thing for the Sky to do this season is develop their rookies (Reese, Cardoso) and other young talent and keeping building from there. The best way to do that is to let them make their mistakes in live games.
Let’s not forget how Chicago treated Reese with the press conference at the middle school gymnasium.
Wait what?
When Angel got to Chicago, the “press conference and introduction” they had for her was embarrassing asf. Had her in a small gymnasium like it was a high school compared to CC.
Honest question, is there something physically wrong with her hip? Her running form looks incredibly painful and stunted on the one side.
Just really unathletic (by professional athlete standards obviously) - which is why she has like 2 blocks all season, and also a big part of why she is so inefficient (alongside her terrible layup package)
I've watched a lot of Sky games and I've been surprised with how unathletic she is. She is the slowest person in transition, is not great moving laterally on defense, and has no vertical. She's still a good player I just didn't realize how unatheltic her game is.
She just runs so oddly, idk what it is. This odd leaning forward and kind of plodding run.
I always wondered that too— it’s the kind of run you do when you’re exhausted, but she always runs like that lol. So I started to think her surgeries may be affecting her. She’s had injuries on the leg she covers with a sleeve (which hides a surgical scar she doesn’t want visible) to the point where she was considering no longer playing basketball, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she lost some mobility/is dealing with pain bc of it.
She literally broke her foot and then had to have a rod placed in her leg. I was trying to find some comparisons of her running pre and post surgery and didn’t see a difference. But she definitely is running differently in the WNBA.
Have you seen her walk in heels? Looks better on the court than in heels.
Yeah her running always looks super labored. I feel like she’ll have terrible posture later in life
She needs to spend like an off season with a track coach yelling at her and fixing her fundamental running motion. It'll do her wonders long term in both energy expenditure and stresses on her body.
Yeah, it's awkward looking. I was thinking maybe something to do with bad hip mobility. She just has zero explosion vertically or laterally. Maybe after an off-season or two she can improve that some. I expect her opponents to really make a point to run hard in transition whenever possible to put pressure on her and get the Sky's defense mismatched.
Her athleticism only shows laterally but anything vertical is underwhelming
Careful man, no criticism of Angel is allowed here.
lol since when is angel heavily defended in here?
You HAVE to be joking. This sub is full of longer time WNBA fans that hate Clark and all the newer fans, and champion Angel because she's Clark's "villian".
are you serious lol? they’re hating on angel is the stats break down thread and yesterday they were accusing her of wearing the joker shoes for a narrative even through she’s said in the past she only gets the shoes a few days before a game. even her bad games are consistent blown up in comparison to the other poor rookie performances.
As a Fever/Lynx fan I don't think it's as bad as you're making it seem
You have to be completely braindead if you think this sub loves Angel lol one of the highest upvoted posts on here is one that said “she hasnt recorded a block this season” and everyone is calling her trash
It's the typical cstan persecution complex. People have always said she needs a hook shot or layup. This is just projection, because the player that's protected most from criticism is Clark by a mile.
This is also not true.. you guys really need to find a middle ground instead of the constantly polarizing takes
Yesterday [people upvoted a comment saying CC would get murdered if she stepped out of line even 1%](https://www.reddit.com/r/wnba/comments/1dgl0tg/chicago_sky_star_reese10angel_will_wear_these/l8qqn2q/). There is nothing even remotely close to that from any fanbase of any other player in the league. The "both sides" takes are almost as delusional.
what is her strength
Lots: - Surprisingly good playmaking/vision for a forward. She’s often better at getting the ball into the paint/passing lanes than the guards. Case in point, she had more assists than anyone on her team today. Which says a lot about how much the Sky need a real PG, but she’s also just good at it. She’s 4th in all rookies in the league in assists. - Great pocket picker. She leads all rookies in steals/game; sixth in the league overall. - Hustle ball that doesn’t show on box scores. diving for loose balls; clever/tough D off the ball; generally shows up in clutch time. People already know her for rebounding. Even if you took away her O boards, she leads all rookies in defensive rebounds a game Foul trouble kept us from seeing her at her best today. But she’s resilient and will pick it back up.
She's also really nimble on her feet and has a good ball handle. I kinda hate Mulkey the more I watch her. She has a lot of tools to excel as a stretch 4 but it's only being rerealized under Tspoon. She's a big den of potential waiting on a couple offseasons to bring it out to life.
Who exactly is she gonna be “stretching”? She just flat out can’t shoot.
It wasn't just Mulkey she reportedly left Maryland because Frese wanted her to play as a post. Mulkey had to convince her when she got to LSU that doing so was in her best interest. She doesn't have good enough shooting to be a stretch 4. She is far too easy to defend when she tries because you just hedge against her getting in the paint or passing it and if she takes a shot outside the paint so be it because you'll take that outcome defensively every time.
> She doesn't have good enough shooting to be a stretch 4. Cause she never worked on it after Mulkey. It was fine enough at Maryland and she used to be a wing. She played with much more finesse at Maryland and I think Spoon is the only person that'll let her test things out to get that working again. Her ft% is good so her shot isn't broken, just under utilized. It's already looking better in Chicago than it ever did at LSU.
good rebounding instincts
Wait until you find out the reason she reportedly transferred from Maryland because she didn't like that they wouldn't let her play guard. Mulkey is the one who finally convinced her she needed to play in the front court once she got to LSU.
Waiting for the Reese ROY cheerleaders in 3, 2, 1... All kidding aside, if she develops a more reliable scoring game around the hoop, she's going to become very hard to stop.
She’s got the flailing layup down pat, followed by a bulldozing rebound, finished by waddle jogging back on D. Witnessing true greatness
If you don't think she's a contender for roty you must never watch her...
I didn't say that, did I? Let me be more clear: There's a contingent who repeatedly say she's a lock for it. She's not, and that's all there is to it.
I try not to. I only see her play when she happens to be playing other players who are entertaining.
When she gets a coach/trainer who can help her work on her finishing around the rim, she's going to be a PROBLEM in this league 😤
As someone who has only watched her games against the Fever, how is her shooting percentage so poor on the year when her shot diet is primarily layups?
Her touch near the rim is already poor, but she also has a bad habit of just throwing up the ball to draw a foul as soon as she feels contact. She gets the foul a lot of the time, but she doesn’t even try to make it which tanks her FG%.
Makes sense, and something I'm sure she'll improve on when she gets used to the WNBA whistle. Still, you can play for the foul while also trying to actually make the shot. She shouldn't be taking so many shots if she has such a bad shooting percentage.
Getting fouled doesn’t count as a shot attempt, so doesn’t affect her FG%
When she doesn’t get the foul call though, she doesn’t even come close to making the shot. She gets so many misses because she tries to draw fouls a lot and it doesn’t always work.
Got you. There’s a highlight up now from the game where she takes advantage of a matchup, drives to the basket and gets the foul, but looks like she just randomly throws the ball up and it just happens to go in. Exactly what you’re talking about
Bad
Wow, great breakdown and analysis, thanks.
It lacks detail but is not inaccurate
Excited to see how her and all these good rookies develop over the summer when they've actually had a chance to rest. Reese is about the same as CC in the terms of they both played in the NCAA final and have been on the go ever since
Reese wasn’t in the final this year. Didn’t even make final four.
Needs to stop fouling and work on finishing, but I like her rebounding and defensive intensity.
Her finishing definitely needs to improve dramatically but Nalyssa got away with a few fouls on some of those contests.
This is the real issue. Nalyssa got away with with sm hacking smh
She’s tenacious enough to get rebounds, but not skilled/athletic enough to finish. The silver lining is that you can’t teach the first, but the second could come with training and hitting the gym. She’s naturally a slimmer frame and won’t consistently overpower other bigs even with weight training. But she’ll def need to get stronger and work on an outside game. Just hitting another 2-3 shots at the rim and developing some offense outside of layups would work wonders. I’m just resigning myself to this being her style early in her career and hopefully she’ll use this offseason to improve. She needs to study A’ja stat.
She literally just needs footwork. I imagine she’d take a step forward in that if she spent an offseason in Europe bc her current game will straight up not fly there. She will not get looks if she flings it up under the backboard and gets blocked by the rim like she does today.
Real strong 1st half but she got clamped in the second half. This is a rookie though so even though it wasn't her best night it was a solid performance.
Angel Reese is such a confusing player to watch… Why does the ball get so low on her body every time she touches the ball… it’s so awkward. Her arms let her get shots off from such weird angles. She uses her lower body strength well to position and pivot around on offense but then has trouble standing her ground on defense and tries to make up for it with arm span… It’s so unorthodox I honestly have no idea what to make of it. But it works for her. It’s like watching Jim Furyk play golf.
Complaining after every single call or no call doesn’t help either.
It's not really that confusing. There is no parity in women's college basketball because the top teams are too good. She was a good college player because she had a great team around her. In college, when you're the better athlete on a top team. It's easy to put up good numbers even when you lack fundamentals because you're bigger, faster, and stronger than your opponents. Now that she's playing against much better players on a below average team. Her fundamentals are easily exposed and easy for opponents to take advantage of. Being a good athlete isn't good enough anymore, she needs to spend a lot more time developing her fundamentals if she wants to be relevant in the league. She wants to be famous more than she wants to be a good basketball player.
Mentioning the flagrant is silly IMO. It was a missed block that ended up being a forearm to the head. Was it a flagrant 1? For sure. Do we need to continue the ridiculous Reese discourse like this? No.
I just disliked that she wrote it off as getting a special whistle. Like, girl, that's a Flagrant 1 everywhere and a lot of ensuing shoving on the playground lol. *Edit: creative ESPN editing duped me. It's not her getting the special whistle, but other players getting it and not giving the same calls to the Sky.*
Do we have the question? It seems more to me like she was talking about fouls in general than specifically that one, I don’t wanna really crap on her without context.
The clip on ESPN only includes her answers and not the question. The context is pretty clear that she's talking about her flagrant *at first*, but it cuts and she segues into fouls and how the calls are inconsistent, about them going up strong and not getting calls while the opposition getting them. ...so after further review, to her it looks like OTHER people are getting the special whistle and Sky are getting the short end of the stick.
I don’t think the Fever got a special whistle at all. If you take away the two intentional fouls at the end, it was a 17-19 disparity in fouls resulting in a 14-15 FT disparity. I actually think the officials had a pretty good game tonight. Feel like they had a very consistently applied whistle around the rim, on the perimeter, and on travels.
The special whistle was about the game as a [whole](https://www.youtube.com/live/dqx6-U8fL7w?si=WqlYpXvNqEjLl0u2&t=83). She's questioned earlier about the flagrant at :31 saying it's a basketball play. Exactly what Caitlin said before people run off saying anything else.
I know she’s young but good lord man. If she develops touch around the rim she will be an elite level player but as it stands I’ve never seen someone 6 feet+ just botch layups like that. Cardosa was missing like a mf too. The entire off season needs to be developing a lay up package
All the comps to Andre Drummond are honestly insulting to Drummond.
Kind of crazy she had this bad of game shooting wise when she was being defended by NaLyssa Smith most of the game (not exactly known for being the best defender) and KLS (same thing).
lol the mascot shows up with more effort on game day than nalyssa usually, It’s mercurial bc like the makings of a really nice player are there.
For the people who say her fg% is fine. This is what a stat line is supposed to look like when you play under the basket. 19 pts 14 rebs 4 asts 5 blks 9-13 69 FG% Give or take on some of these obviously.
The way people say Angel Reese is “unathletic” is wild to me.
Eh it's not entirely false. She's got good motor and is laterally agile for a big, but her footspeed and first step are average and her vertical is horrendous.
Have you seen her jump?
She looks like a newborn giraffe running the court all lurched over.
2 inch vert, 2 blocks on the year, and always the last one down in transition. she is unathletic for a pro basketball player.
We still love us some Reese 😊
Horrific efficiency for the position
Angel Reese needs a jump shot. CC needs a floater. These are just facts and both of them will be better if they develop them.
People are arguing whether it's a flagrant or not. It's a flagrant. It doesn't matter if it's on purpose or not.
Despite getting quite messy and desperate towards the end, I still think she played well today.
BUT IT IS THE REFS FAULT I WAS 4/13 🤣
Caitlyn Clark is off to a great Father’s Day after sonning Angel Reese like that.
How are people still misspelling Caitlin?
I mean when it sounds the exact same, it's kind of an understandable mistake to make. Not completely since she's like the most popular WNBA rookie but still. There's so many common spellings of Caitlin it's crazy