On Sunday, Atlanta Dream finally suffered their first loss of the season, falling 85-84 to the Las Vegas Aces. Just like she had been central to Atlanta’s early wins, Angel Reese found herself under the spotlight again, this time after a difficult outing in the narrow defeat. In fact, American former sports columnist Jason Whitlock considers Reese’s performance the worst he’s ever seen.

“I think I can say this without an ounce of exaggeration, that was the worst basketball performance I’ve ever seen in my life,” Whitlock said as per his X account. “On any level. Junior high, high school, community college…”

Of course, Whitlock did say he wasn’t exaggerating. But looking at his statement from a factual perspective, it would still fit into the definition of what an exaggeration is.

Angel Reese did have a bad game. She shot just 12.5% from the floor and committed eight turnovers, which was as many as the number of shots she attempted.

She also recorded zero steals, one block, and had a -20 rating, which means that during the exact minutes Angel Reese was physically playing on the court, her team was outscored by 20 points by the Las Vegas Aces.

However, despite these quite disappointing stat lines, Reese still came up with nine points, three assists, and eight rebounds. Whitlock, however, did not find these impressive at all, especially with her shooting, which was still full of misses despite most of her attempts coming from very close range.

“I get the rebounding,” he said. “But with every shot coming from the paint, except for a three-pointer, which she missed as well, one of (the) eight from point blank range.”

Reese did not miss difficult, heavily contested mid-range jump shots or deep perimeter shots. Out of her eight field goal attempts, seven came directly inside the paint from right next to the basket.

These were point-blank layup-range opportunities. Missing six layups from inches away from the rim is a severe execution failure for a professional frontcourt player. Even seven of her nine points came strictly from shooting 7-of-8 at the free-throw line.

This performance even had Whitlock believing that Angel Reese wasn’t even in Atlanta to play basketball.

“I watched it start to finish. It was brutal,” Whitlock continued. “The traveling calls, the turnover, the shooting, the extra makeup, she’s got herself all dolled up like a Barbie doll. She’s not there to play basketball. I sincerely believe I’ve never seen anything this bad in professional sports.”

Now, Angel Reese will just have to bounce back and go again, hopefully, with a better performance. The Dream will face the Dallas Wings in their next game.

Karl Smesko Says Angel Reese “Will Get Better Game by Game” Following Poor Showing vs Aces

Karl Smesko has maintained quite a positive outlook about Angel Reese following their loss against the Las Vegas Aces. Speaking in the postgame interview, he explained that Reese is still going through an adaptation process, which is quite normal when a player just changed team.

“It’s definitely a transition whenever you go from one team to another and you have to learn a whole new system,” he said. “…So, I think through the course of the season, you’ll get to see her be more comfortable within our style of play. I just expect her to get better game by game because that’s the way she’s uh approaching it in practice.”

Smesko believes Reese has indeed been putting in the required work in practice. In her final season with the Chicago Sky, Angel Reese remained a consistent force by putting up 440 total points alongside 14.7 points and 12.6 rebounds per game. But her start with the Atlanta Dream has looked far quieter so far. This year, Reese has averaged just 10.7 points through her first three games while scoring 32 total points overall.

“What I see every day or what I get to see every day is somebody that’s working really hard in practice. Who wants to learn, who’s asking for extra film,” Smesko added. “She has the athletic tools to be, you know, one of the best players and she’s motivated to become one of the best players.”

Smesko, in fact, expects that Reese will be, as he said, “a big impact player.” Her first two games seemed to show that she’s on the path to becoming that. She recorded 11 points and 14 rebounds in the first game, and 12 points and 16 rebounds in the second. Hopefully, she gets over this one bad game and delivers once again in the next one.