Angel Reese was named the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year on Thursday, and it was not close. She took 46 of 74 votes, with Gabby Williams getting 20, A’ja Wilson four, Shakira Austin two, and Veronica Burton and Rhyne Howard one apiece.
She is the first Atlanta Dream player ever to win it and the first player from the Eastern Conference to take it since Sylvia Fowles in 2013.
The Case Was Overwhelming
This was not a reputation award. Reese finished in the top four league-wide in defensive rating at 100.0, in defensive rebounds at 315 and in defensive rebound rate at 30.3 percent. She led the entire league in defensive win shares at 3.4.
She did that while posting a career-high 16.4 points per game and a career-high 1.8 steals across 43 starts. Players who carry that much offensive load usually give something back on the other end. She did the opposite.
Worth remembering how she got to Atlanta. The Chicago Sky traded her to the Dream for two future first-round picks in April. Chicago missed the playoffs. Atlanta is in the semifinals and now employs the league’s best defender.
Then There Was the Hand Thing
Two nights before the award, Reese was part of the most-replayed moment of the first round, and not for a good reason.
After Atlanta finished off Washington 93-75 at CareFirst Arena to complete a sweep, Reese and Allisha Gray started waving goodbye to the Mystics and their home crowd. DeWanna Bonner, 39 years old and three weeks into her time with the Dream, reached over and pushed both of their hands down to their sides.
ESPN captioned the clip “Vet leadership.” That is about the only commentary worth citing, because none of the three players involved has publicly said a word about it. The words being attached to Reese around this clip, including harsher ones, are coming from aggregators rather than from anybody in the building.
Bonner Was Right Anyway
The gesture was unnecessary. Atlanta had just won by 18 in a game with 53 combined fouls, which means tempers were already up and the handshake line was seconds away.
Bonner signed with Atlanta on August 27 after Phoenix bought out her contract, which makes her the newest veteran in the room telling the face of the franchise to knock it off. That takes some standing, and she clearly had it, because both players dropped their hands immediately.
The series itself was a statement. Atlanta won Game 1 by a 92-77 score and closed it in two, reaching the second round for the first time since 2018 after three straight first-round exits. Gray scored 22 in the clincher, Jordin Canada put up 19 points with 13 in the fourth plus 11 assists and seven rebounds, and Reese and Howard each had 15. Reese averaged 14.0 points and 9.5 rebounds across the two games.
What Comes Next Is Harder
The Dream open the semifinals Sunday at home against the New York Liberty, who just did something no WNBA team had ever done. The eighth seed eliminated the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx in two games, winning both by 16 points.
So Atlanta gets a best-of-five against a team playing with house money and zero pressure. Reese has the hardware and the better seed. New York has the momentum and the most dangerous thing in a playoff bracket, which is a roster nobody expected to still be here.
Reese had the best defensive season in the league and spent the week being coached in public by a 39-year-old teammate. Both of those things are useful to her. Sunday will show which one took.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.