Angel Reese is heading to the WNBA Finals in only her third season in the league. She's doing so with a team that she's helped battle through a season that was tough, and that resulted in the Atlanta Dream's first WNBA Finals appearance since 2013. She's doing so while performing the best she has, ever, at exactly the right moment. She's doing so while shooting — and making — catch and release threes, while grabbing boards better than most, and while being the engine that keeps the Dream humming.
You know what she's not doing? She's not reflecting back on the 2023 NCAA run against Caitlin Clark. I'd be incredibly surprised if Reese was thinking about Clark much at all right now, mere days before the biggest games of her professional career begin. I imagine Reese, a consummate professional, is focused on her game, and on being the type of teammate that can help push the Dream to a championship.
For most of the 2026 season it's seemed like we all collectively let the Reese-Clark narrative go. "We all" doesn't include bad actors and likely bots on social media, and it also doesn't include fledgling influencers who are trying to make a buck by trotting out what's become one of the laziest WNBA conversations out there.
Reese is an exceptional basketball player not because of Clark, and not in spite of Clark: she's just that good, period. She would be that good if the Clark drama had never existed. Somewhere, I hope there is a parallel world in which Iowa and LSU never played, but the 2024 WNBA Draft proceeded as it did in ours, because in that world Reese would be just as important and talented as she is in this one, but perhaps she wouldn't be on the receiving end of so much garbage.
The WNBA Finals kick off on Saturday. The Atlanta Dream will host games at the State Farm Arena next week, a fitting reality for a team of basketball players who have worked hard and who aren't easing up on themselves now. This year's WNBA Finals are already historic — the Valkyries made it in only their second year, and both Natalie Nakase and Karl Smesko are in only their second years as head coaches. There have never been more people showing up to games and watching at home. There is just so much to appreciate and celebrate — and even so much to criticize and analyze — that has nothing to do with an irrelevant, outdated story.
No matter what happens, Reese will end the 2026 season on a high that few players ever reach. Perhaps the most amazing thing about her is that the best is yet to come.
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