No way Angel Reese was going to miss a chance to capture a moment Friday with former President Barack Obama, who dropped in on the WNBA’s All-Stars before their media duties got underway at the Obama Presidential Center.
“Gotta get your pic,” Reese said. “Not everybody’s going to meet Barack.”
The truth is Reese, the former Sky firebrand now playing in Atlanta, vibed even more with former first lady Michelle Obama, on whose podcast she appeared as a guest in April.
“She made me feel the empowerment of what [being] a woman is like, to go through so many different things, to be in front of the world and have your back against the wall and go against the odds [with] everything she was doing. She gave me a lot of advice, so I appreciate Michelle. She poured so much into me, and I’m just really happy.”
Reese wasn’t always thrilled with things in Chicago, where the Sky went 13-27 and 10-34 in her two seasons. She lost and lost, occasionally did battle with the media, dealt with slings and arrows from abusive fans and eventually soured on the organization that drafted her No. 7 overall in 2024.
It’s so much better with the Dream, who entered the All-Star break in excellent shape at 16-10, including a 2-0 mark against Reese’s old team.
“They welcomed me with open arms,” Reese said. “It feels like a really safe place for me. It’s the safest I’ve ever felt, the most loved I’ve ever felt and I’m just really happy.
“They made me feel loved from the beginning. There’s nothing I can’t ask for. When I come to practice, it just feels like basketball. I don’t think about anything else. Starbucks is waiting in your locker. Anything I need, I got it. I ain’t never had that before. They just love you. I think that’s what an organization is supposed to do.”
Reese is scoring a career-high 15.4 points per game and, she believes — and her All-Star teammates back this up — elevating those around her in newfound fashion. She describes herself as being more confident and patient. Of course, the rebounding is still there, as ever. But about that? For a player whose reputation with the Sky was built on piling up double-doubles — for which both the team and Reese’s fans touted her a bit too much — the thinking has evolved.
“The double-doubles, they don’t matter unless we’re winning,” Reese said.
All-Stars Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard score more than Reese, average more minutes and have put in more years getting the Dream pointed in the right direction. There are no signs Reese is under the impression she’s the main force driving the bus on this team, and that’s significant. So is her teammates’ full-on support of a newcomer who’s always had a strong taste for fame in addition to her on-court skills.
“She’s an amazing teammate, an amazing person, and one of the nicest people you could meet,” Gray said. “She’s a joy to be around, has so much positive energy, and you know what you’re going to get from her every day. I’ve had so much fun playing with her. Any time I have an interaction with Angel, it’s good.”
Howard called Reese “the piece we were missing.”
“Man, I love Angel,” Howard said. “I hope she’s a Dream for a long, long time. She’s super sweet, she’s super kind-hearted and she really knows how to keep basketball separate, and that’s a virtue that not everybody has, especially with teammates of her caliber. …
“She brings a lot of tenacity to our team, a virtue of ‘dog’ that we have to keep up with because she’s relentless. And she’s the best teammate. Even on her worst day, she makes sure somebody else is having their best.”
In her introductory press conference as a rookie at the Sky’s amateur-hour practice facility in Deerfield, Reese said she’d have to work her tail off just to make the team. In the end, even though things didn’t work out long-term, she did a whole lot better than that.
She felt “pretty good” being back in Chicago, but Atlanta has been a “dream come true, literally.”
Where does she hope to go from here?
“I mean, I think everybody always remembers the winner,” Reese said. “I want to be a winner, I want to be win that WNBA championship, I want to be an Olympian, and all the personal goals that come with [those things].
“But when I came to Atlanta, I just wanted to do whatever it takes to win. I didn’t know what my role was going to be or what it was going to look like. To be able to have my best year yet, to come and be so successful with this team, it just feels really, really good. I’m really, really happy.”
In other words, no drama.
An Obama could appreciate that.