The New Derek Jeter: How Angel Reese is Both Overrated and Underrated

This post is a part of WNBA Week+.  During this stretch, I will release several blog posts related to the WNBA, including news stories, player discussions, and teams’ seasons.

 

At one point during Derek Jeter’s career, I read an article about how he had become both overrated and underrated depending on who was asked.  If you asked Yankees fans, you got answers about how he was one of the best Yankees of all time, was the best shortstop of his era, was consistently great, was robbed for at least one MVP, was a flashy defender, was clutch, was a winner, and, most importantly to many, was The Captain.  That said, if you asked people who weren’t fans of him, you got answers about how he was overrated and wasn’t the best shortstop in the league, but rather was boosted by his status on the Yankees.  Further, a lot of analytics view him as a negative defender (his range in particular was poor and often overlooked by his leaping throws) and often not one of the best shortstops in the league in any given era (in particular, I would argue that he wasn’t the best shortstop on his team after New York traded for A-Rod).  The truth is that he was always somewhere in between; he was absolutely a Hall of Famer and all-time great who was one of the best shortstops in the league for a long time, though he likely was never the best shortstop in the game for more than a year or two given the competition he was up against.  I think we have reached a more extreme situation with Angel Reese.

Depending on who you ask and where you look, you can come away with the viewpoint that Angel Reese is one of the best players in the WNBA or a horrible basketball player with very little room in between.  Unfortunately, I think this is more due to reasons beyond her basketball play and is due to people wanting to find a reason to hate her.  Because it’s only 2025, people still get mad anytime a talented black athlete is confident and passionate, and it only gets worse when it’s a female athlete; Reese is certainly confident in her ability and wears passion on her sleeve (for that matter, I prefer an athlete be openly passionate because it shows just how much they care about what they’re doing, in the same kind of way that employers would want their employees to care about their jobs).  On top of that, she is going to be forever linked to Caitlin Clark due to being in the same draft class as her, which makes it worse for Reese because Clark is viewed as a safer player to root for due to her race and the fact that she played at Iowa and then Indiana instead of LSU and then Chicago (unpopular opinion that will probably result in me being burnt at the stake:  Clark is much more overtly cockier than Reese is, but not enough people who claim to like her more than Reese have ever watched more than a few clips of either).  I think it’s unfortunate and insane to just hate a player because they can, but as I have previously written, we are still in a situation where the WNBA themselves appear resistant to promote black athletes as the faces of the league, which is wild when most of the best players in the league are black.

I think it’s quicker to tackle the idea that she is overrated than that she is underrated.  There aren’t too many people who are saying she’s the best player in the league, but the amount of attention would make you think she must be.  The most notable thing to look at is the fact that she is a cover athlete for NBA 2k26, which would imply that she is one of the league’s superstars.  Before I argue against this choice, I need to bring up two things.  First off, historically the cover athlete isn’t necessarily the best player in the game, as we’ve seen with cover athletes including Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Ben Wallace, and Anthony Davis, all of whom are/were elite talents but not always a consensus top-10 player in the league (and often not the best player on their teams).  Second, the WNBA editions haven’t always been the most orthodox selections, as Sabrina Ionescu was a cover athlete before A’ja Wilson (the prior cover athletes from the W have been Candace Parker, Diana Taurasi/Sue Bird, Ionescu, and Wilson).  That said, it’s odd to think that Reese should be a cover athlete before Napheesa Collier, Breanna Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, Jonquel Jones, Kelsey Plum, or even Clark.  While I’m not shocked that she would be named before Thomas, Jones, and Plum, each of these players are better than Reese.  Prior to her injury, I don’t know that she was a lock to be selected for All-WNBA (I have yet to sit down and determine my opinion of this at the time of writing, so I have no idea whether I think she should yet), so it’s interesting that she is the cover athlete for 2k; it reminds me of the Irving selection a bit, who was a star player but wasn’t even the best on his own team (Reese is the best on her team, but might not be All-WNBA yet).  On top of that, her slow start to the season shows that she still has a little more work to do, though she did improve significantly as the season went on.

I think the easier argument to make is that she is underrated.  There is a lot of focus on her missed baskets and “me-bounds”, where she gets her own offensive rebounds.  While she still isn’t the most efficient from 2, her efficiency has improved significantly as the season went on due to her initiating the offense and taking more shots in the paint while driving, something she was used to with her playing style prior to the WNBA.  On top of that, while she does get a lot of offensive rebounds, she gets significantly more defensive rebounds; her defensive rebounds per game alone would put her second compared to total rebounds per game behind A’ja Wilson (Reese has almost 3 total rebounds more than Wilson).  On top of that, she is a very good defender due to her high IQ, which she has utilized with her positioning and what to do on a play to make up for her lack of elite WNBA athleticism.  Additionally, she is improving as a playmaker, especially as a downhill driver, which I thought was something that could be developed due to her IQ.  She still isn’t a good shooter, but there is improvement from that end; she also is a good free throw shooter, which often translates to future success shooting.  She still does have her inconsistencies and mishaps on both ends of the court, but I think a lot of these stem from her still being younger and are common for a player of her age.  I think she has made it clear that she is much better than many “commentators” and trolls who have seen a few low-lights of her games claim to make her out to be.

In reality, Reese is neither the best or worst; she is a great player who has strengths and weaknesses, but could end up being a top-2 player on a competitive team.  Honestly, this is a great thing, since almost nothing should be binary and be all-or-nothing.  Unfortunately, most things in our society are treated as such.  It is unfortunate that we cannot value the joy and talent that is right in front of us, and instead will always find something to nitpick, preventing us from finding true joy.