WNBA star Angel Reese won’t be deterred by negativity.
Reese, a two-time All-Star while with the Sky, found a new home with the Atlanta Dream after she was traded during the offseason. The trade comes after what Reese describes as some highs (winning a championship at LSU and being a top-10 WNBA Draft pick) and lows (learning now to navigate the narratives around her transition to the league) over the last two years.
The Dream forward says that the negativity she experienced wasn’t normal or acceptable. Still, she understands it’s her “new reality,” and she’s learning how to be grateful and graceful through her experiences.
“I’m getting pulled by the wins, but I’m also getting pulled by the losses, and how do I find a medium where I’m able to just cope with both?” Reese said on the “IMO” podcast with former First Lady Michelle Obama and her brother, Craig Robinson.
“Everybody always asks me, like, ‘Are you alright?’ Like, yeah, I’m alright as I can be, and everything is not great, but I try to wake up every day and just be grateful for every moment. Every moment hasn’t been great, but I wouldn’t change this life for anything because I’ve had some really good moments. And I don’t want bad moments to outshine the good moments … I try not to let the negative outshine the positive.”
Reese says that amid what was, at times, a challenging period, after leaving college and playing in Chicago, she still achieved the goals she wanted: continuing to have a successful basketball career, starting a foundation and having a signature shoe. The 23-year-old also said that she continues to push forward with the mindset that everything, even small things, is a win for her.
“I don’t even let the negativity get to me. It doesn’t bother me. You see it. I see it. We all see it … I’ve grown to have a skin where you can’t break me. You just can’t break me,” Reese said.
“It just makes me go harder. I have so many goals. It’s like if I stop now, I proved you right, and I proved you right. And I have nothing to prove to anybody but myself. And I just know, like, I want to continue to do the things that I want to do. Nobody can – I’m not going to let the outside control my own narrative of what I want to be and what I wanna do.”
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