MVP conversations usually start with players putting up massive scoring numbers, but one WNBA legend sees something different in Angel Reese. For her, the Atlanta Dream star clearly deserves to be a part of the conversation, especially with the transformation the team has undergone over the season.
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It was four-time WNBA champion Tina Thompson who made this stance clear during an appearance on the Cousins podcast hosted by NBA legends Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter. There, she propped up Reese as a dark-horse candidate for the MVP award, and a clip of the segment was posted to X by the podcast’s official account.
“I like Angel. I like how she’s unapologetically herself,” she said in the clip posted to X. “I like that she’s taken a different route to impact the game, that she’s not so kind of just fixated on scoring. She’s like, ‘Dirty work? I’ll get it done.’ Like, heck, I wouldn’t mind being her teammate. It’ll allow me to be a little bit more finesse.”
There’s plenty to be said about Atlanta’s season this year. The Dream have already clinched a spot in the playoffs and currently sit at 26-14 for the #4 seed, holding the tiebreaker over the Indiana Fever, who have the same record.
Reese, meanwhile, has been excellent for the Dream. Apart from scoring 16.1 points per game, the forward has built a case as one of the frontrunners for Defensive Player of the Year. Reese has the highest defensive rating differential in the league at 15.1. That means the Dream’s opponents score 15.1 more points per 100 possessions when Reese is off the floor compared to when she’s playing, the highest such swing in the league.
Per SBNation, Reese’s presence on the court directly correlates with the Dream’s opponents posting the league’s largest declines in effective field-goal percentage, true-shooting percentage, and two-point percentage: −7.4%, −5.6%, and −5.9%a percentage points, respectively.
Reese has guarded the most pick-and-rolls of any player in the league. Impressively, the team’s defensive rating is at a monstrous 77.2 per 100 possessions when these actions take place, showing her prowess as an all-around defensive player.
All of that comes before even getting to her rebounding, which is Reese’s biggest advantage. She is set to finish her third season in a row as the league’s lead rebounder, and has already broken several records this season.
Against the Sparks in August, Reese set the record for most rebounds in a single game with 26, breaking Chamique Holdsclaw’s mark of 24 set in 2003, as well as the single-season rebounding record of 451, set in 2024 by A’ja Wilson. She also broke the record for most double-doubles in a single season, beating Alyssa Thomas’ mark of 28 set in 2023.
It was that all-around impact that made Reese one of the most important players for Team USA during their FIBA World Cup run over the first half of September, with head coach Kara Lawson particularly praising her effort following Team USA’s narrow win over an Italian squad.
“She comes into the game, and she plays with great energy, and she competes,” Lawson said on a night when she was harshly critical of the rest of the roster. “She scores, she rebounds, she plays with great pace. It’s what you want in a young player to come into the game and do that, so that’s what I appreciate most about her. She finds a way to make an impact.”
For Tina Thompson, Angel Reese’s rebounding stands out in particular, especially because people don’t seem to understand how difficult it can be.
“What she brings is impactful,” Thompson added. “What Angel Reese does is it impacts winning, and it doesn’t necessarily mean like scoring… Most double-doubles in a season. People that didn’t play, they don’t know how hard that is. It’s hard… It’s hard to do that.”
What the statistics and Thompson’s comments make clear is that Reese does not need to take every shot or need the ball in her hands to dominate the game. She can dominate the glass, handle physicality anywhere on the floor, create extra possessions, and make life easier for perimeter creators around her.
Now, with Atlanta sitting as one of the league’s top contenders, Thompson’s comments show that non-scoring impact needs recognition, and perhaps even MVP consideration alongside more traditional choices.