Angel Reese desires ladies’s basketball followers to know that she and her teammates have additionally performed a job within the sport’s rising recognition.
The WNBA star addressed the Chicago Sky’s Saturday, June 1, loss towards the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark‘s affect on the league whereas talking to reporters on Monday, June 3.
“I believe so many individuals are watching ladies’s basketball proper now. It all began from the nationwide championship recreation, and I’ve been coping with this for 2 years now and perceive that, yeah, unfavourable issues have in all probability been stated about me. But actually, I’ll take that as a result of look the place ladies’s basketball is,” she stated.
“People are speaking about ladies’s basketball that you just’d by no means would suppose could be speaking about ladies’s basketball. People are pulling as much as video games. We’ve received celebrities coming to video games [and] sold-out arenas simply due to one single recreation,” stated Reese. “And simply taking a look at that, I’ll take that function. I’ll take the dangerous man function, and I’ll proceed to take that on and be that for my teammates, and I do know I’ll go down in historical past.”
“I’ll look again in 20 years and be like: ‘Yeah, the reason why we’re watching ladies’s basketball is not only due to one individual, it’s due to me too, and I need you to understand that,” continued Reese. “Like it is simply not trigger of 1 individual. Quite a lot of us have executed a lot for this recreation.”
Reese, who was the seventh choose within the 2024 WNBA Draft in April, was fined $1,000 for “failing to make herself obtainable to the media for interviews” after Saturday’s recreation, the WNBA stated in a press release, in keeping with the Associated Press and The New York Times.
“In addition, the Sky group has been fined $5,000 for failing to make sure that all gamers adjust to WNBA media insurance policies,” the league’s assertion added, per the retailers. Along with Reese, her teammate Chennedy Carter’s foul given on account of knocking Clark to the bottom within the third quarter was additionally upgraded to a flagrant 1 violation.
While talking to reporters on Monday, Reese stated she was taking “accountability.”
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“That was one thing on my behalf that I wasn’t capable of do for the time being simply due to the timeline of it however [I’m] ensuring shifting ahead I’ll take outing for you guys,” she added.