Angel Reese broke two major WNBA rebounding records during the Atlanta Dream’s 78-71 win over the Los Angeles Sparks on Monday. But as radio host David Shepard pointed out, instead of celebrating historic achievements of that magnitude, some of the response she received amounted to ridicule and deliberate undermining of what she has now accomplished. Shepard was unequivocal in his rejection of the ‘me-bounds’ narrative being directed at Reese.
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“It wasn’t celebrating the fact that she’s part of a team that’s going to be in the playoffs. It was mocking her, it was deriding her, it was coming up with a term known as ‘me-bounds’…” Shepard said in a video shared on his X page on Wednesday.
“I find it harmful that Angel Reese is already responsible for the three greatest rebounding seasons in WNBA history. And there’s criticism with that. There’s pushback with that. That’s awful. That needs to change. You can be critical of her game and the offensive repertoire and maybe some of the easy misses at the basket.”
“We’re celebrating Angel Reese for having 26 rebounds in a game on Monday, which is the most ever in a single game in WNBA history, and we’re celebrating somebody that has now had three seasons where they’ve averaged over 12 rebounds per game, again, the highest rebounding total in any season in WNBA history, three of them belong to Angel Reese, and there’s pushback against her. I don’t understand that,” he added.
Angel Reese set the record Shepard was talking about in that game against the Los Angeles Sparks on August 24. In that game, she set the WNBA single-game rebounding record, pulling down an unprecedented 26 rebounds, surpassing the previous mark of 24 set by Chamique Holdsclaw in 2003.
In the same game, she also pushed her season total to 458 rebounds, breaking the previous single-season league record of 451 set by A’ja Wilson in 2024.
And yet, despite those numbers, Angel Reese still faced the “mebounds” criticism that has followed her since the early weeks of her WNBA career. The term that’s become popular online among Reese’s critics minimizes her rebounding milestones by arguing that the only reason Reese gets so many putbacks is that she is not good at shooting.
In fact, Shepard himself argued that the Atlanta Dream star isn’t the greatest shooter on the WNBA court right now. However, the radio host also explained that her 44% shooting wasn’t bad, saying, “Not everyone’s going to be Wilt Chamberlain out there.”
A closer look at the record 26-rebound game also tells a very different story. Eighteen of those 26 rebounds were on the defensive end. And of the 26 total, only three actually came from her own missed layups.
Yes, Angel Reese’s offensive efficiency, even in that same Sparks game, was a concern. She shot just 4-of-14 from the field, with all 10 of her misses coming within five feet of the basket and five of her shots blocked during the game.
Yet for David Shepard, when she does something as historically significant as pull down a record 26 rebounds, she deserves to be celebrated for it, not dismissed, mocked, or reduced to a punchline.