Somewhere along the line, a narrative was created that Angel Reese pads her rebound statistics by following up her own missed shots. Somewhere along the line, great offensive rebounding and the ability to get second-shot opportunities became a negative in order to boost the magnificence of Caitlin Clark and demean the rebounding mastery of Reese.
Baseball Analyst John Kruk Offers Another Tired Angel Reese Diss During Broadcast
Former MLB All-Star and longtime analyst John Kruk couldn’t resist the opportunity to mock Angel Reese while calling Tuesday night’s game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox on NBC Sports Philadelphia. While wishing happy birthday to one of his high school teammates, play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy, joked that he helped his former teammate become a basketball star by missing so many shots and creating rebound opportunities.
That’s when Kruk, a former Philadelphia Phillies star, made an obvious Reese reference.
“I don’t want to say anything but there’s someone here in Chicago that does that a lot. She gets her rebounds, too,” Kruk said.
Reese has been trolled by idiot fans who say she only leads the league in rebounds because she gets a lot of “mebounds,” which is a demeaning term that was coined to describe the way she pads her own stats. Reese smartly filed a trademark for the term. In a rare collision of the MLB and WNBA world, Reese seemed to catch wind of Kruk’s remarks and issue a response via social media.
“clout (sic) is one helluva DRUG. like (sic) it really gets to a point,” Reese wrote on X.
Social Media Got A Kick Out of John Kruk’s Angel Reese Shot
“Kruk is the truth,” said one fan on X.
“A redneck talking about Angel Reese that’s not gonna go over well,” said another fan.
“Lmao. He’s a national treasure,” added a third fan applauding Kruk for his failed attempt at demeaning Reese via comedy.
Some fans though Kruk was being racial with his attack on Reese’s game durign a baseball telecast.
“John Kruk is another White man with a lazy take on Angel Reese,” said one frustrated netizen.
Reese also shared a message for her critics on TikTok at around the time the Kruk video started bubbling. The focus on Reese’s alleged offensive inefficiency became an ongoing joke among casual fans and the pro-Clark, middle-aged white men who have no use for the WNBA beyond objectifying certain women, criticizing the culture of the league, the Black women in the league, the owners in the league and striking out against anything or anyone that doesn’t bow down to Clark, who they only support as a means of causing trouble and racial division throughout the league.
Angel Reese Is Shooting Higher Percentage Than Caitlin Clark This Season
Angel Reese is a post player with some ball handling capabilities who averages a double-double, leads the league in rebounds and is shooting a respectable 44 percent from the floor this season, which is significantly higher than Caitlin Clark’s 36.7 percent through 13 games before shutting down due to a groin pull. Shooting below 40 percent as a rookie wasn’t great, but there are some players considered great shooters in the WNBA who are barely shooting 40 percent from the field.
For example, Dallas Wings legendary scorer, Arike Ogunbowale is shooting a career-low 36.9% from the field. She’s a 20.1 ppg career scorer, who has finished in the Top 10 for MVP five times in seven seasons but only shoots 39.1 percent for her career. Guess who else has worst field goal percentages than Reese this season? Clark, Kelsey Plum, Gabby Williams, Alisha Gray and Sabrina Ionescu.
Angel Reese Is Averaging Far More Defensive Boards Than “Me-Bounds”: Leads WNBA In Both
So, elite shooting is in the eye of the beholder, and Reese isn’t just missing and rebounding her own shots. Reese is averaging almost four rebounds per game (12.6 rpg) more than the next closest rebounder, A’ja Wilson (9.1 rebounds per game). Reese has 289 total rebounds to Wilson’s 210. Reese also averages 8.7 defensive rebounds per game, which is significantly higher than any other player in the WNBA, including Wilson, Azura Stevens, Nneka Ogwumike or any of the other big-time board crashers across the league. Her offensive rebounding happens to much higher than any other player (3.9 per game), Brionna Jones (Atlanta Dream) and Reese’s teammate Kamilla Cardoso are second with 3.0 me-bounds per game.
So the narrative is kind of played out now and it’s really only uniformed, troublemakers who continue to try and push it. In her last game against the Mystics, Chi Barbie had 22 points and 13 rebounds. Oh yeah, she also shoots about 80 percent from the free throw line, which shows her shooting touch. Much higher than someone like Minnesota Lynx’s 6-foot-4 baller Alanna Smith — who is considered an upper echelon all-around shooter because she can shoot threes (31 percent) and has a higher FG percentage (47.8) — but is a walking liability when she goes to the line where she shoots just 43 percent.
It’s basketball and Angel Reese is damn good at it. When you do the research it’s obvious.
