Angel Reese turns ‘mebounds’ taunts into momentum for Atlanta Dream
Angel Reese is using online criticism and talk of “mebounds” as motivation while starring for the Atlanta Dream in Atlanta, including during the WNBA showcase matchup against the Indiana Fever on 16 August. Her season-long surge has combined record-breaking rebounding outputs with improved scoring and efficiency.
With the game tied at 81 and five seconds remaining on 16 August, Rhyne Howard launched a deep three and Reese positioned under the basket to snag the air ball with an outstretched hand. In the scramble that followed Reese forced a shot off the backboard that caromed off the front rim and Naz Hillmon’s putback fizzled as the buzzer sounded; Indiana escaped with a 95-91 overtime victory. Reese said she “didn’t sleep,” adding, “The competitor in me wanted to win that game so bad. I replayed that play so many times.” She vowed to shrug the loss off and improve in subsequent games.
Reese responded immediately on the court, holding her own against reigning MVP A’ja Wilson in Las Vegas and helping knock the defending champions down a peg in the playoff race. Two days later against Los Angeles she scored 20 points on all nine of her shot attempts in what the report described as her most efficient game as a pro. Last Saturday against Phoenix she posted a career-high 31 points and 14 rebounds for her 25th double-double of the season, extending the franchise record she set earlier in the month.
She followed that with a 26-rebound performance in 40 minutes against the Sparks, a night that the article says broke the WNBA’s single-game and single-season rebounding records. Those individual feats came amid a four-game stretch on the road that ended in victories. The Dream acquired Reese in a spring trade for the third-year vet, and the club has relied on her increased production.
Online criticism has tracked Reese through those achievements; the report says critics surface under Dream and WNBA posts and under Reese’s own social-media celebrations of a Vogue cover, a custom Barbie doll and an interview with Michelle Obama. User-generated clips dedicated to her lowlights proliferate, and commentators routinely roast missed layups, airballs and other lapses. The most persistent online claim labels some of her putbacks “mebounds,” accusing her of missing on purpose to pad rebounding totals.
The commentary has not been limited to anonymous accounts: the report notes Shaquille O’Neal suggested to Reese that she and her peers would draw more male fans if they lowered rims and wore hot pants. Camera crews at the Fever–Dream game searched for an updated version of Reese’s NCAA title-game staredown with Caitlin Clark, the piece says, and the WNBA promoted the pair after they entered the league as the first and seventh picks in the 2024 draft. The article also recounts that Toronto Tempo coach Sandy Brondello drew a one-game suspension for referring to Reese as a “protected species” and apologized profusely for the remark.
Reese’s basketball background is outlined in the report: she emerged as a Baltimore-area teen phenom, played in her mother’s adult rec league, helped her high school as a sophomore toward a state championship, transferred from Maryland and led LSU to an NCAA title in 2023. After LSU’s run, her testy exchanges with Caitlin Clark are described as a catalyst for intensified social-media scrutiny. When asked about the abuse following LSU’s loss to Clark’s Iowa team in the 2024 Elite Eight, Reese said: “I’ve been attacked so many times, death threats, I’ve been sexualized. I’ve been so many things, and I’ve stood strong every single time.”
The article reports measurable improvements in Reese’s game beyond rebounding: she is putting up personal highs in scoring at 16.1 points per game and in total minutes played, and she has shown increased confidence handling the ball, shooting from outside and contesting shots. While noting she “still has a way to go before rounding into a rangy frontcourt threat who draws defenders farther from the basket,” the piece adds she has demonstrated the ability to carry the Dream’s championship hopes.
Last fall Reese filed a trademark for “mebounds” to create a one-off line of shirts and hats with the proceeds going toward cyberbullying prevention, and she has leaned into the conversation on social media. “Whoever came up with the mebounds thing, y’all ate because mebounds, rebounds, crebounds – anything that comes off that board, it’s mine,” she said in a viral post. “And a brand? That’s six figures right there. The trolling? I love when y’all do it because the ideas be good.” Her recent four-game road winning streak has, according to the report, strengthened Atlanta’s chances of locking up the second overall playoff seed behind white-hot Minnesota.