Angel Reese’s underappreciated rookie season with the Chicago Sky was one for the ages

Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images

Reese’s season was cut short due to a wrist injury — and though it was often evaluated through a comparative lens — it will ultimately be stamped an all-time rookie campaign.

It will take time for the greatness of Angel Reese’s rookie season to truly be appreciated.

Reese announced on Saturday night that her historic rookie season would be cut short due to a season-ending wrist injury — a massive blow to the Chicago Sky, who just barely hold onto the 8th seed in the playoff standings and will now be without their most impactful player the rest of the way. The injury announcement came as a surprise — the wrist wasn’t even flagged as a concern after the Sky’s win over the Sparks — and with it, the perennial Rookie of the Year candidate’s season is over.

Though there was undeniable chatter and hype surrounding it, Reese’s season was never fully appreciated for what it was, as her greatness was often evaluated through the comparative lens of whether she was having a more impactful season than Caitlin Clark. It became undeniable that she wasn’t; in just a few short months, Clark has turned around a franchise and ran the Indiana Fever offense in a manner we’ve never really seen in the WNBA, achieving the rare feat of putting together an MVP-caliber season as a first-year professional.

In a normal year, Reese could very well be walking away with a Rookie of the Year award. It just so happens to be that she’s starting her professional career alongside a player who could very well end up being the greatest in the history of the game.

Still, in her first season, the 7th pick in the 2024 draft was able to showcase a motor for rebounding that is rivaled by very few players in the history of the sport. It’s a gift that in some sense was diminished, in part because rebounding has typically not been perceived as exciting to watch as logo three-pointers or 40-point offensive explosions. Reese’s rebounding was also often misrepresented as primarily coming as the result of her own misses, which ESPN’s Rebecca Lobo disproved last month.

“Some of her critics like to say… ‘She gets a lot of offensive rebounds off her own misses,’ Lobo said. “Well our stats and information group looked that up. If you take away all of the offensive rebounds off her own misses… She’s still leading the league in offensive rebounds per game.”

There’s undeniable room for growth in Angel Reese’s game, namely her touch around the rim, as she shot just 39.1% from the field in her rookie year. Still, Reese’s energy helped made her the Sky’s most impactful player, according to plus-minus numbers. She notably finished the year with the best on-off point differential of any WNBA player (minimum two games played). Chicago was 22.5 points better with her on the court than off the court per 100 possessions — effectively, the Sky were a completely different team when she sat.

Reese also finished the year with a long list of rebounding records, though she consistently downplayed their significance, particularly after frustrating losses. Most notably, she is now the WNBA’s all-time leader in total rebounds (446) and offensive rebounds (172) in a single season. Her final averages for the 2024 season — 13.1 rebounds and 5.1 offensive rebounds per game — are the highest by any player in WNBA history. In other words, in less than a full season, she grabbed more rebounds than Sylvia Fowles, Tina Charles, Candace Parker, Lisa Leslie and the rest of the league’s all-time greats.

Women’s basketball legend Cheryl Miller coached Reese in the WNBA All-Star game back in July, which gave her an opportunity to watch Reese’s process up close. The rookie finished the game with 12 points and 11 rebounds in 18 minutes off the bench, marking the first All-Star game double-double by a rookie in WNBA history.

“I don’t know how she does it,” Miller said on the Mark Jackson Show earlier this week. “She doesn’t jump out the gym. She’s not like [she’s] 6’ 6’, 6’ 5’ which gives her a height advantage or length advantage. So it has to be here (points to the heart), it has to be here (points to the head), because I’ve never seen someone offensively rebound better than her. And she reminds me of that mentality of Dennis Rodman — anything around the rim, loose around that she gonna get, she gonna find a way.”

Reese received similar praise from two-time MVP A’ja Wilson after the two faced off in June.

“The biggest thing that I see from Angel is just her speed, and the want to get the basketball,” Wilson said. “I feel like you don’t see that out of players all the time, that second and third effort to go get the basketball. She has that in her.”

Due to the injury, Reese will leave a couple of records on the table. She finished her season with 26 double-doubles, just two shy of Alyssa Thomas’s record of 28 double-doubles. She will fall short of becoming the first WNBA player to record 500 points and 500 rebounds in a single season. But, given that she’s only 22 years old, it’s fair to say she’s likely to reach these marks moving forward.

In a post on X announcing the injury, Reese reflected on what she was able to accomplish through 34 games.

“All I have ever wanted was to come into the W and make an impact,” Reese said. “I can confidently say I have done that and will strive to keep doing so. I’m filled with emotions right now that I have a season ending injury, but also filled with so much gratitude for what is next.”