Angel Reese is one game away from a WNBA Championship.
In just her third season in the WNBA, Reese is having a dominant season. She forced a trade out of Chicago to the Atlanta Dream, won Defensive Player of the Year, and now is playing a Game 7 on Saturday with a chance to win both a title and Finals MVP. A lot is on the line.
In addition to career-defining moments being on the table, Reese has a chance to overtake her "rival" player, Caitlin Clark, staking a lead in the trajectories of their careers that Clark may not be able to erase.
Clark and Reese are constantly compared
Everything that Reese is accomplishing this season and in the WNBA Finals stands alone, but sports are also about comparison. Players are the "fastest since player X" to put up a statline, or they are the first players to ever do "that." And the ties between Clark and Reese are strong, for better and for worse.
Those ties were forged in steel (honestly, something strong - titanium? Vibranium?) when Reese and Clark squared off in the National Championship Game in 2023. Reese and the LSU Tigers came away with the win, giving her a leg up on Clark in team accomplishments.
Yet Clark's personal stardom only increased as she set the all-time scoring record, and she was drafted first overall as Reese fell to No. 7. That link has persisted throughout their time in the WNBA, with legitimate head-to-head comparisons inflated by all manner of invented tension.
Clark got to the playoffs first as a rookie, and her Indiana Fever came within a game of the WNBA Finals last season. She made the All-WNBA team first. She placed Top 5 in MVP voting this season. Her "star" seemed brighter than Reese's.
Reese is passing Caitlin Clark
Angel has closed the gap this year. All-WNBA, Defensive Player of the Year, and now the WNBA Finals, a level Clark has never reached. She is one game away from her first title in just her third season, and winning Finals MVP as the fourth-youngest player to ever hold the trophy. The list she would join includes Breanna Stewart (youngest Finals MVP in W history) and Maya Moore.
It would be very nearly impossible to make a case for Clark being more accomplished than Reese if Angel wins the ring. Her dominance in multiple games of the series put her firmly in the spotlight, and another big performance in Game 7 would seal the deal.
One of the greatest two-player rivalries in sports was between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, who entered the NBA together after facing off in the NCAA Championship Game. Their rivalry was the centerpiece of the NBA for a decade.
Clark and Reese may never rise to the level of that rivalry, or even of Lisa Leslie and Lauren Jackson -- those two defined the 2000s in the WNBA and traded both titles and MVPs. Clark and Reese are only getting started.
Their rivalry certainly has the attention, however, and so it will matter that Reese is first to the pennant. She will have the photos with the trophy. She will have the ring. She will have the banner in the rafters -- not Clark.
To some that will not matter. To most, it will be the difference. The stakes in Game 7 are huge on their own; for Reese, on a personal level, they are that much bigger.
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