Angel Reese
Angel Reese won the 2023 NCAA title at LSU, broke WNBA rookie rebounding records with the Chicago Sky, and became a three-time All-Star with the Atlanta Dream.
Angel Reese is an American professional basketball forward whose career has doubled as one of the most-watched stories in women’s sports. She won a national championship at LSU in 2023, entered the WNBA as the No. 7 pick in 2024, and rewrote the league’s rookie rebounding record book before becoming, per WNBA.com, “one of the premier rebounders in league history.” Off the court she anchored Reebok’s return to signature basketball and helped make the Angel Reese–Caitlin Clark storyline a ratings phenomenon that broke marks standing for a quarter-century. What follows is the sourced account of how she got there.
| Vitals | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 6, 2002, Randallstown, Maryland |
| Position | Power forward |
| Teams | Chicago Sky (2024–2025), Atlanta Dream (2026–) |
| Draft | 2024, Round 1, No. 7 overall (Chicago Sky) |
| Contract status | On the Atlanta Dream roster under her 2024 rookie-scale contract, as of Sep. 16, 2026 |
| Number | 5 |
Maryland
The recruit. Reese arrived at the University of Maryland as the program’s highest-ranked signee, the daughter of two college players. Per her Wikipedia profile, a Jones fracture in her foot cut short her freshman debut. She returned as a sophomore to average 17.8 points and 10.6 rebounds and earn third-team Associated Press All-America honors, a breakout that positioned her as one of the most coveted transfers in the country when she entered the portal in 2022.
LSU and the 2023 championship
The title. Reese’s move to LSU under coach Kim Mulkey was immediately transformative. In the 2022–23 season she set an NCAA single-season record with 34 double-doubles and carried LSU to its first national championship, a 102–85 win over Caitlin Clark and Iowa in which she posted 15 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. She was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. The game and its aftermath — the two stars trading gestures — became the origin point of a rivalry that would follow both into the pros.
The encore. As a senior in 2023–24, Reese averaged 18.6 points and 13.4 rebounds and was named SEC Player of the Year. LSU’s rematch loss to Iowa in the 2024 Elite Eight drew 12.3 million viewers, per Sportico — then the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record — a preview of the audiences the rivalry would command at the next level.
Chicago Sky
The rookie record book. The Sky selected Reese seventh overall in 2024. She responded with one of the great rebounding seasons by a first-year player, averaging 13.6 points and a WNBA single-season record 13.1 rebounds across 34 games, per StatMuse. Along the way she reeled off 15 consecutive double-doubles — a league record — and was named an All-Star and to the All-Rookie Team.
The second season. In 2025 Reese raised her scoring to 14.7 points and added 3.7 assists while pulling down 12.6 rebounds, per Her Hoop Stats. She recorded her first career triple-double — 11 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists in a win over Connecticut, per CBS Sports — and, per the Sky’s season recap, tied for the league lead with 23 double-doubles despite a back injury that limited her to 30 games and became the fastest player to reach 450 career points and 450 rebounds.
Atlanta Dream
The trade. In April 2026 the Sky traded Reese to the Atlanta Dream, where she wears No. 5. The change of scenery produced the most complete season of her career: 16.1 points, 12.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.8 steals across 39 games, per StatMuse. She led the WNBA in rebounding, set a single-season double-double record, and became the fastest player in league history to 1,000 career rebounds, reaching the mark in 79 games. Her selection to the 2026 All-Star Game made her a three-time All-Star in three seasons.
Unrivaled and the brand
The offseason league. Reese was a founding face of Unrivaled, the three-on-three offseason league. Per her Unrivaled bio, she led the inaugural 2025 season in rebounding, was named Defensive Player of the Year, recorded the league’s first 20–20 game (22 points, 21 rebounds), and won the championship with Rose BC. She returned to Rose BC in February 2026 for a shortened run, averaging 13 points and 10.3 rebounds over three games.
The business. Reese signed with Reebok in 2023 and became the second WNBA player to receive a signature shoe with the brand, per Yahoo Sports. The Angel Reese 1 launched in colorways including “Diamond Dust,” “Unapologetically Angel” and “Expressive Pink,” per Andscape and Sports Illustrated. By January 2025 she was the most-followed player in the WNBA, a reach that made her one of the sport’s central commercial figures.
By the numbers
| Season | Team | GP | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | FG% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Chicago | 34 | 13.6 | 13.1 | 1.9 | 1.3 | 39.1 |
| 2025 | Chicago | 30 | 14.7 | 12.6 | 3.7 | 1.5 | 45.8 |
| 2026 | Atlanta | 39 | 16.1 | 12.4 | 2.8 | 1.8 | 43.7 |
Per Basketball-Reference and StatMuse.
Career totals
Ranks
- 1st Rebounds per game, WNBA (2026 season, 12.4)
- 1st Rebounds per game by a rookie, WNBA single-season history (13.1, 2024)
Honors
- 2023 NCAA champion (LSU)
- 2025 Unrivaled champion (Rose BC)
- 3× WNBA All-Star (2024, 2025, 2026)
- 2024 WNBA All-Rookie Team
- WNBA single-season rebounding record (2024)
- 2023 NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player
- 2024 SEC Player of the Year
- 2025 Unrivaled Defensive Player of the Year
Per StatMuse, WNBA.com and the Unrivaled league site, through Sep. 16, 2026.
The arguments
Did Reese and Clark save the WNBA’s ratings, or did the media manufacture the feud? One camp credits the pair with the audiences behind the numbers: per Sportico, a 2025 Fever–Sky meeting averaged 2.7 million viewers, the biggest WNBA television turnout in a quarter-century, one of several games that broke a 25-year record. Others, including writers at Forbes, argue the “rivalry” was amplified and at times racialized by outside coverage the two players never fully endorsed. Both things can be true, and the reporting supports each.
Is her rebounding elite skill or a byproduct of her own missed shots? Reese’s rebounding totals are historic, but analysts have noted that her early-career field-goal percentage (39.1% as a rookie, per StatMuse) inflated her offensive-rebound chances off her own misses. Defenders counter that her rebound rate stayed dominant even as her shooting climbed to the mid-40s by 2025, and that leading the league outright in 2026 answers the question. The 2025 back injury complicates any clean read of her ceiling.
Why it matters
Angel Reese matters because she compressed a decade of milestones into three seasons: a college title, a rookie rebounding record, the fastest climb to 1,000 rebounds in WNBA history, an offseason-league championship, and a signature shoe — all before her 25th birthday. Whether history files her as a generational rebounder, a marketing supernova, or the co-author of the WNBA’s biggest audiences, the record already shows a player who moved the numbers in every ledger that measures the sport.