Angel Reese is back on the court with Unrivaled — and giving Chicago Sky fans a glimpse of how their star is preparing for her second WNBA season.
Reese went 0-2 with Rose in the opening weekend, dropping a 79-73 loss to Vinyl on Friday and a 79-70 loss to the Lunar Owls on Saturday. But wins and losses aren’t the most important takeaway from Unrivaled for Sky fans, who can use the 3-on-3 league to track Reese throughout her first WNBA offseason — a crucial period of her career.
This is a unique experience for fans, to have a high-level peek at a player’s offseason development process. While the veterans of the league are mostly focused on tweaks in the offseason, most second-year players like Reese, Rickea Jackson and Aaliyah Edwards should make substantial gains in different growth areas of their game from Week 1 to Week 9 of the Unrivaled season.
So where is Reese in that development process? Here’s what we learned from Week 1 of Unrivaled.
Fitting a system
Reese was assigned to Rose alongside Chelsea Gray, Kahleah Copper, Brittney Sykes, Azurá Stevens and Lexie Hull this season. This roster is interesting due to the lack of a center, which forces 6-foot-6 Stevens and 6-foot-3 Reese into size mismatches on both ends of the court.
This is not the most ideal fit for Reese to prepare for the Sky season — she would have been aided by pairing with a big like Stefanie Dolson or Brittney Griner to work on spacing the floor when she reunites with Sky teammates Kamilla Cardoso and Elizabeth Williams this summer. But Stevens is still a valuable stretch-four to work alongside and Rose spent more time in two-big rotations in their second game of the weekend against the Lunar Owls.
Jumper improvements
Reese only took 80 jump shots last season — and made 28.7% on them — but the Sky would like to see her diversify her shot selection in 2025. The Chicago offense would benefit heavily if the forward could edge her shooting further away from the rim to create more balanced spacing of the court with Cardoso dominating the low blocks.
Although she only took two jump shots in the opening weekend of Unrivaled, Reese’s form on both shots seemed to reflect a sizable improvement in this area. Reese appears to have streamlined her gather to be more efficient, which allowed her to load up in a higher shooting position and fire off a shot more quickly than last season.
This doesn’t mean Reese has transformed into a catch-and-shoot threat overnight, but she nailed both jumpers with improved form — a best-case scenario for Week 1.
Controlling the dribble
The Sky might not ask Reese to post up as frequently this season, but it’s still important for her to improve handling with her back to the basket. For this reason, ballhandling is a crucial area of growth for Reese — and one that was challenged quite often in the opening weekend of Unrivaled.
Rose fell into the trap of encouraging players to go 1-on-1 against their defender rather than utilizing screens on and off the ball to hunt mismatches and improve positioning. This meant that Reese was asked too often to dribble the ball from the perimeter to the rim in an attempt to establish herself with her back to the basket or score a layup.
This exposed Reese’s tendency to dribble away from her body, which causes her to lose balance and allows defenders to poke the ball out of her hands. Reese gave up five turnovers in her opening game, although she cleaned this up in her second game on Saturday to finish with zero turnovers.
Finishing efficiency
Reese caught a lot of flack for her finishing in her rookie season — and for good reason. She shot only 49.8% at the rim, the worst finishing rate in that zone of any starter in the league.
This weakness wasn’t immediately fixed this weekend. Reese went 6-for-15 at the rim in her first two Unrivaled games. Just like last season, there isn’t one finishing issue for Reese at the rim — but her misses fell into one of two categories this weekend.
When playing with her back to the basket, Reese struggles to establish her shooting pocket on the turn. This often results in shots that are launched with her hands well outside of the vertical cylinder of her body, resulting in her most unwieldy misses.
Facing the basket, Reese is still struggling to finish through contact. If Reese can establish more space for herself with her off shoulder and arm while also elevating her release, she will be able to place shots higher on the backboard to increase her overall accuracy. This low point of release also meant Reese often failed to anticipate incoming blocks, shooting directly into the hands of Napheesa Collier at least once in Saturday’s loss.
The good news is that Reese is still successfully snagging the majority of her misses for put-back opportunities, a skill that helped her establish herself as a rookie. But increasing her efficiency will allow Reese to become a more reliable offensive threat.
