Angel Reese has become long been a lightning rod for controversy and as she embarks on her second WNBA season, most of the criticism has been narrowed to two things ā how she handles her personal rivalry with Caitlin Clark and her struggles to finish around the basket.
Only one of those can be tackled objectively and, spoiler alert, that's where I'm focused today.
Through the Sky's first two games this season, Reese is now 4-of-19 on shots within eight feet of the basket. This following a season where she shot 41.4 percent from that distance, worst in the league by an almost unfathomable margin among the 21 players who attempted at least 200 shots from that range last season ā only one other player was below 50 percent, DiJonai Carrington, a 5-foot-11 guard who still made 48.3 percent.
Last year, I tried to blend together some of the criticisms of her finishing with an analysis of her incredible rebounding. Reese is a historic rebounder, and that includes rebounding her own misses. Last season, she finished with 40 z-bounds (a rebound of your own miss), absolutely shattering the previous record of 27, shared by Liz Cambage and Tina Charles. And rememeber, she did that despite missing six games.
While it's true that her rebounding numbers are padded, to a very small degree, by rebounding her own misses. That's still an incredible valuable skill that helps her team. And it also makes her poor field goal percentage slightly less troubling ā many Sky possessions where she missed a shot ultimately still ended with her making a basket:
"And the last point is that, while her propensity for rebounding her own misses means her stats may slightly overstate her rebounding ability, it also means her shooting percentages may understate her offensive impact. She's rebounded 22.6 percent of her missed shots this season, which means nearly a quarter of her missed shots have still resulted in a bucket for her team."
But, honestly, it's been harder to make that same argument so far this season.
Angel Reese's stats are heading in the wrong direction
Reese already has 4 z-bounds in two games, a pace that would put her at 80 if she were healthy for the entire season. But her finishing has been so bad to start the season that even grabbing her own misses at an increased rate isn't nearly enough.
Estimated Contribution, an all-in-one metric from Positive Residual that incorporates both box score stats and on-off numbers, estimates that Reese has been the third-worst offensive player in the entire league this season. For her to be a net positive on offense for her team, she has to keep crashing the offensive glass but also finish around the basket at something close to the league average and, ideally, extend her range a bit.
Reese has attempted just three shots from outside the paint so far this season, making just one. Opponents are giving her a ton of space around the perimeter at the elbows, and she hasn't really demonstrated any facility at using that space to attack and create good looks for herself around the basket. Too often, she's just forcing her way into traffic and not giving herself any real angles.
Opponents know exactly where Reese's comfort zone is, and they're ready and waiting for her. She's already been blocked 8 times this year, 40 percent of all her 2-point attempts. That's twice as many blocked shots as anyone else in the league and, again, this is a category in which she led the league last season with 76 of her shots blocked.
To be fair, Reese has started the season with two tough matchups ā against Aliyah Boston and the Fever and then against the big Liberty frontline of Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart. These numbers may level out as the season goes along. But even some healthy progression to the mean might only lift her back toward her rookie numbers, which, frankly, just weren't good enough.
Making one of two 3-point attempts in her first two game is a positive sign, after she made just 3-of-16 all season as a rookie. But it's not nearly enough. She has to finish better around the rim, and that means not just making more shots, it also means being a lot more selective. It means not trying to bulldoze her way from the elbow to the rim against longer players. It means the Sky giving her more help with sets and actions that get her on the move without the ball, that don't throw in her to the post and while everyone stands around and watch.
But at some point, the ball needs to go in the basket a lot more often, or Reese is going to risk seeing her role minimized and her WNBA future in shrinking.