Angel Reese Isn't Bad
She's the 8th most valuable player in the WNBA. The discourse just doesn't know how to value what she does.
August 2026 · Draft Chalkboard
We built a player value model for the 2026 WNBA season using play-by-play data from every game. It measures shooting, volume, rebounding, assists, turnovers, steals, free throws, and blocks, then rolls everything into a single Points Above Replacement (PAR) number. Angel Reese ranks 8th out of 211 players. Ahead of Olivia Miles. Ahead of Kahleah Copper. Ahead of Aliyah Boston. The internet has decided she's bad at basketball. The data says otherwise.
The Top 10
Here are the 10 most valuable players in the 2026 WNBA by scaled PAR, broken into the components that produce it. Each column is a per-game point contribution. Green is positive, red is negative.
| # | Player | PAR | Shoot | Reb | FT | STL | AST | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A'ja WilsonLV | 1.72 | +2.6 | +4.4 | +6.7 | +1.8 | +1.5 | -2.8 |
| 2 | Kelsey MitchellIND | 1.38 | +2.4 | +0.9 | +4.1 | +1.2 | +1.3 | -2.0 |
| 3 | Breanna StewartNY | 1.37 | -0.6 | +3.8 | +5.8 | +1.6 | +1.6 | -2.3 |
| 4 | Kelsey PlumPHX | 1.29 | +3.1 | +0.8 | +4.6 | +1.2 | +2.8 | -3.0 |
| 5 | Napheesa CollierMIN | 1.28 | +2.5 | +3.3 | +2.7 | +2.0 | +1.6 | -2.1 |
| 6 | Paige BueckersDAL | 1.27 | +3.4 | +1.8 | +3.1 | +1.0 | +2.9 | -2.3 |
| 7 | Caitlin ClarkIND | 1.26 | +1.4 | +1.4 | +5.5 | +1.1 | +4.1 | -5.0 |
| 8 | Angel ReeseATL | 1.22 | -4.2 | +7.2 | +4.6 | +2.0 | +1.3 | -3.0 |
| 9 | Olivia MilesMIN | 1.22 | +0.6 | +1.9 | +4.2 | +1.5 | +3.1 | -3.4 |
| 10 | Rhyne HowardATL | 1.21 | +0.5 | +1.7 | +3.2 | +2.8 | +1.8 | -1.3 |
Yes, the Shooting Is Bad
We're not going to pretend otherwise. The blue area is league average. The red area is Reese. She's below average at every distance.
The rim number is the one that hurts most: 79% of her shots come from within 4 feet, and she converts at 48.1% against a league average of 62.0%. That 14-point gap on high volume is where most of her -4.2 shooting value comes from. The threes (14.0% on 43 attempts) are bad, but she barely takes them.
Reese's value doesn't come from her shooting percentage. It comes from everything else. Specifically, from her rebounding, which she does better than anyone in the WNBA. Though some are skeptical of those numbers, so let's get into that.
The "Own Misses" Argument
The most common criticism: “She just rebounds her own misses.” The implication is that her rebounding numbers are inflated because she shoots poorly, misses, grabs the rebound, and gets credit for a stat she caused. It sounds logical. It's also mostly wrong.
We sequenced every play in every Atlanta game this season. When Reese grabs an offensive rebound, we checked the previous shot attempt to see who missed. The results:
Of her 168 offensive rebounds, 119 came off teammates' misses. She positioned herself, boxed out, and grabbed a board that would otherwise have gone to the opponent. Only 49 were her own misses. The narrative that her rebounding is a byproduct of her shooting is backwards. She is, overwhelmingly, cleaning up for other people.
She's Not Even Close to Normal
Reese averages 4.9 offensive rebounds per game. Here are the top 10 offensive rebounders in the league, along with how often each player's OREBs come after their own miss versus a teammate's miss. The league average self-rebound rate is 22.6%.
| Player | Team | OREB | OREB/G | Self% | Team OREB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angel Reese | ATL | 168 | 4.9 | 29.2% | 119 |
| Natasha Howard | MIN | 122 | 3.4 | 18.9% | 99 |
| Jessica Shepard | DAL | 101 | 2.9 | 8.9% | 92 |
| Kamilla Cardoso | CHI | 94 | 2.7 | 28.7% | 67 |
| Kiki Iriafen | WSH | 90 | 2.7 | 17.8% | 74 |
| NaLyssa Smith | LV | 81 | 2.2 | 7.4% | 75 |
| Jonquel Jones | NY | 78 | 2.2 | 16.7% | 65 |
| Dominique Malonga | SEA | 71 | 1.9 | 33.8% | 47 |
| Dearica Hamby | LA | 70 | 2.0 | 20.0% | 56 |
| Natasha Mack | PHX | 67 | 1.9 | 7.5% | 62 |
The last column is the one that matters. Strip out every self-rebound from every player and Reese still leads the league at 119, twenty ahead of Howard's 99. Her 29.2% self-rebound rate is above the 22.6% league average, but she's not unusual among star bigs. Cardoso is at 28.7%. Malonga is at 33.8%. Breanna Stewart and A'ja Wilson don't even appear on this list because they don't grab enough offensive boards to qualify, and their self-rebound rates are higher than Reese's: Stewart at 41.4% (58 OREB) and Wilson at 30.6% (62 OREB).
What an Offensive Rebound Is Actually Worth
An offensive rebound is not just a stat. It is a possession. When a shot misses and the defending team grabs the rebound, the possession ends. When Reese grabs it instead, the offense gets another chance. Across the WNBA, an average possession produces roughly 1.0 points.
Reese created 168 extra possessions this season. That's approximately 168 points of expected value, or about 5 extra points per game, that Atlanta gets purely because she is on the floor pursuing the ball. That alone is worth more than the gap between a league-average shooter and whatever Reese shoots from three.
What the Discourse Gets Wrong
Basketball commentary has a bias toward scoring, and especially toward shooting. A guard who shoots 42% from three and averages 18 points is immediately credible. A forward who shoots 14% from three but generates 5 extra possessions per game through offensive rebounding is not.
The math says these contributions are comparable. Five extra possessions at ~1.0 points each is 5 points per game of value that doesn't show up in a scoring column. An efficient three-point shooter hitting two extra threes per game is 6 points. The rebounder and the shooter are providing similar value through completely different channels.
Reese is the best offensive rebounder in the WNBA by a significant margin. She leads ATL in PAR. She is their most valuable player. Atlanta is 21-13 and in playoff position. The one game she missed, they lost by 10.
She is not bad. She is unusual. The gap between those two things is where the entire discourse falls apart.
Data: 2026 WNBA play-by-play, 262 games through August 18. PAR model uses shooting, volume, rebounding, assists, turnovers, steals, blocks, and free throws relative to replacement level. Offensive rebound sequencing based on play-by-play event ordering.