Dream already won Angel Reese trade without even playing a single game yet

Angel Reese is headed to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for a 2027 and a 2028 first-round pick. For the Sky, this signals a redo of their rushed rebuild and the end of the two-big experiment with Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. For the Dream, it’s an all-in move to try to bring a championship to Atlanta. 

Adding Reese to a core of Rhyne Howard, Allisha Gray, and Naz Hillmon—as well as Bri Jones once she is healthy and if she re-signs with the team—makes the Dream an even more dangerous team than it was last season. It’s a bold move that could finally lead to some playoff success.

But the team doesn’t actually need to play a single game to emerge as the winner of this trade. The Dream got a young star who will bring tons of eyes and attention to the team, they added another All-Star to an already good team, and they gave up two first-round picks that wouldn’t have been very good anyway. 

After last season’s success, it’s difficult to imagine that the Dream would have been anything other than a playoff team the next two seasons—even without trading for Reese—which would have put them at the end of the first round. The 2027 draft will be stacked, but the Dream can still stomach losing a late first-round pick in exchange for an All-Star who can help them win now. 

The Dream is going to be a lot of fun

Fans haven’t seen Angel Reese surrounded by good spacing and All-Star teammates yet, as the Sky just could not put together a winning or even cohesive roster. With the Dream, she will be surrounded by two of the best 3-point shooters in the game, who also just happen to be great perimeter defenders. She will also finally have a frontcourt running mate who can shoot threes in Naz Hillmon. 

No matter what the rest of the roster looks like—the Dream’s front office still has decisions to make about Jordin Canada, Bri Jones, and Brittney Griner—the trio of Reese, Howard, and Gray is guaranteed to be a fun combination. Their skillsets should mash pretty well. 

Reese’s Chicago Sky exit was two seasons in the making

The Sky made a draft-day trade to get Reese, and things seemed to be going well when she made her first All-Star team. After that, things went downhill quickly. Reese was disappointed that the Sky missed the playoffs, the organization fired Teresa Weatherspoon, and then still failed to build a winning roster. When Reese criticized the roster’s many weaknesses, they suspended her for half a game, and she didn’t play another game for the rest of the season.

The only question that remains is how much of this trade was just the Sky sensing that they should move on from Reese now before she eventually leaves in free agency and how much of it was Reese telling the organization that she wanted to be traded.