On a recent episode of “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich,” Dan Dakich asked me what the biggest WNBA storyline would be this season—and whether it would have anything to do with basketball.
The second question was easy to answer: probably not.
Angel Reese’s Finals showed how criticism of her game can turn into accusations of racism
I do care about the basketball. I spent more than two weeks traveling between San Francisco and Atlanta to cover the WNBA Finals. But the result wasn’t the only thing I wanted to understand. I was also asking why both teams left the court before the national anthem, and what players, coaches and league officials thought about it.
In July, ESPN’s Chiney Ogwumike called on the media to reset its coverage of Caitlin Clark and the WNBA. On “First Take,” she said she wanted more attention paid to the “beautiful basketball” being played in the league’s 30th season.
But is that really what we should focus on?
Gabby Williams and Angel Reese entered Game 7 as co-favorites for Finals MVP. Across the first six games, they had made just 34.4% of their shots combined. For comparison, the lowest shooting percentage by an NBA Finals MVP was Kobe Bryant’s 40.5% in 2010.
At halftime of Game 7, Atlanta led 30–24. The teams had scored 54 points on 31.8% shooting. Reese and Williams had seven points between them, going 3-for-8 from the field. Reese scored five; Williams had two.
Why isn’t Angel Reese held to the Caitlin Clark standard when fans attack her teammates?
Williams took over after the break, scoring 28 second-half points as Golden State beat Atlanta 68–63 to claim its first WNBA championship. She hit the go-ahead three with less than three minutes to play and finished with 30 points and four blocks. She earned the trophy, even though her 32.6% shooting for the series was the lowest ever for a WNBA Finals MVP.
Reese shot 40.5% in the Finals and 41.8% in the paint. She missed 28 of 53 layups. Her nearly 13 rebounds per game are a good reason to keep her on the floor, of course. Still, you’d expect a 6-foot-4 forward to finish more often near the basket.
Is that the basketball the league’s media wants us to talk about more?
After Game 3, Reese flashed the “too small” gesture at Golden State, then smiled and waved as the Valkyries left the court. She had scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, Atlanta was ahead 2–1, and Reese said she was getting into the team’s heads.
Over the next two games, she went 4-for-20 and began criticizing the officiating. By Game 6, Reese was one loss away from elimination—the same player who had called Golden State too small.
We’ve seen this kind of rivalry before. Late in the 2023 national championship game, Reese followed Caitlin Clark around the court, making the “you can’t see me” gesture and pointing to her ring finger. The following year, 12.3 million viewers watched Clark’s Iowa team knock Reese’s LSU team out of the Elite Eight.
In August, Clark’s Fever and Reese’s Dream drew 2.6 million viewers, the largest audience for a WNBA game on ESPN. Clark is the biggest draw in women’s basketball, and when Reese is on the other side, the matchup brings a rivalry people have debated since their college days.
The league said 3.3 million people watched Game 7. That’s a strong audience for the WNBA, though it needs some context. Even if you tuned in hoping Reese would lose, you also got to watch Williams take charge in a championship game.
If the goal is to bring in more viewers, maybe stop telling them what they’re supposed to care about.
