While Angel Reese was lauded for her rebounds and double-doubles, one aspect that shadowed her throughout the season was her shooting struggle. During the NCAA days, Kim Mulkey had revealed that Reese would meticulously practice shooting, to better her game. However, with the Chi-Town Barbie getting drafted into Team Rose in the Unrivaled, her new head coach opines that she might get over her flaws soon.
On Tuesday, the Team Rose head coach Nola Henry opined that Reese will get a chance to improve her play, especially since she will be training with Chelsea Gray.
“I think Chelsea Gray will definitely help Angel’s development… It’ll speed up her development — not just from a leadership standpoint, but also understanding the angles of the floor, and understanding screening,” Henry stated.
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Gray is known as the W’s ‘Point Gawd‘ for being a scorer and a deadly facilitator. The 3x WNBA champion was one of the reasons for the Las Vegas Aces 2022 Champion win, especially in the Finals series when she hit 18.25 points with 6 assists per game and also won the Finals MVP award for her performance.
NEW: Angel Reese is set to make her Unrivaled debut, and her head coach, Nola Henry, is excited.
“For Angel, it doesn’t matter, 3-on-3, 5-on-5, college, WNBA — she’s an incredible rebounder… that’s just what she’s done her entire career.”https://t.co/Brvi8eysYD
— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) November 26, 2024
Overall, she averages 12 points with 5 assists per game and has hit 46.2% from the field over 10 seasons which speaks volumes about her shooting skills. Meanwhile, Gray isn’t the only player who can help Reese.
Rose also has another star in Kahleah Copper, who played a primary role for the Phoenix Mercury this season. Copper hit 21.1 points per game, and a major reason behind her success was her shooting skills. She shot 43.5% from the field with 80.7% accuracy from the free throw line. Therefore, the guidance of veterans like Copper and Gray will certainly help Reese better her shooting skills, who has been accused of rebounding her own shots.
Angel Reese’s strength questioned because of her weakness
While the Chicago Sky star was at one time considered a contender for Caitlin Clark’s ROTY award, what led her down were her shooting skills. At one point, Reese had the highest rebounds ever in a single season with 446, which was later surpassed by A’ja Wilson.
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Combined with her ability to score double-doubles, especially after she broke Candace Parker’s record, the 22-year-old was lauded for her game. However, fans accused her of stat padding.
“Most of her rebounds are from her own missed lay ups so that is no record,” one fan commented on the social media networking platform X. As of September beginning, a report claimed that Reese had 53 rebounds of her own misses. This threw light on her poor shooting skills. The LSU-alum had just 39.1% field goals and 18.8% threes. At the same time, she collected 13.1 RPG with a league-high 5.1 O-boards per game.
Hence, analysts and WNBA legends like Rebecca Lobo have mentioned how stat padding was not the case with the seventh-overall pick. “Some of her critics like to say, you know, ‘Well, she gets a lot of offensive rebounds off of her own misses.’ Well, our stats and information group looked that up. If you take away all of the offensive rebounds off her own misses, guess what? She’s still leading the league in offensive rebounds per game,” the Hall of Famer Lobo stated on SportsCenter.
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Maybe that is why while preparing for the Unrivaled in the recent practice session videos, the Maryland-born was seen practicing her long-range shooting.
Hopefully, Reese will be able to improve her shooting skills and learn from the Point Gawd. And perhaps then fans will not blame her for collecting boards from her own shots.
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