The pearl clutching over Angel Reese’s criticisms of the Chicago Sky is a bit much.
And by a bit much, I mean utter nonsense.
First, nothing Reese told the Chicago Tribune was wrong. The Sky is slumping toward the end of yet another dismal season, in third-to-last place in the WNBA standings at 10-30. Saying the team needs a significant roster upgrade was simply stating the obvious.
Even Reese’s concern about the point guard position, specifically the Sky banking on Courtney Vandersloot’s return from a torn ACL, is rooted in reality, harsh as it might be.
“We can’t rely on Courtney to come back at the age that she’s at,” Reese told the Tribune. “I know she’ll be a great asset for us, but we can’t rely on that. We need someone probably a little younger with some experience, somebody who’s been playing the game and is willing to compete for a championship and has done it before.”
Vandersloot is a Sky icon, a key member of the 2021 championship team, but pro sports are all about what have you done for me lately. The recovery time for any player with an ACL tear is about a year, and it often takes several more months to get back to pre-injury form. It also often takes older athletes longer to recover, and Vandersloot turns 37 in February.
Which means that, at best, the Sky won’t have Vandersloot back until June or July. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the WNBA season starts in May. If Chicago wants to win, which is kind of the point of a professional sports team, it needs a starting-caliber point guard from Day 1 and neither Rachel Banham nor Hailey Van Lith has shown herself to be that option. (In fairness to both of them, point guard is not their natural position.)
The larger issue, however, is about the indignation that Reese would dare to speak truth about her franchise and her teammates.
Male athletes talk frankly about their performance and that of their teammates all the time. It’s part of being a high-level athlete. This is their job, and when something or someone isn’t meeting the standard, it’s going to get identified and addressed.
Even when it goes beyond that — Kobe Bryant routinely talked smack about other Lakers and there are Green Bay Packers and New York Jets who still have the tread marks from Aaron Rodgers throwing them under the bus — it doesn’t prompt widespread outrage. There are no emergency team meetings. No one debates whether this spells doom for their future with the team.
There is, in fact, an entire hagiography built around Bryant’s bad behavior, both as a teammate and person.
Yet the standards for women athletes, and Reese in particular, are different. They train and compete every bit as hard as their male counterparts, but they’re not supposed to show it. They’re supposed to smile and compliment each other and say excuse me before committing a foul.
And God forbid they should ask for what they deserve or call out any shortcomings.
Reese won a national title at LSU and has proven herself to be one of the WNBA’s elite players in her first two seasons. She’s been the face of the Chicago franchise since she was drafted. The Sky is not a team built for success, on or off the court, and Reese is supposed to just smile and play along with that?
Would we expect that of Victor Wembanyama or Tyrese Haliburton?
Would we expect that of Caitlin Clark?
Reese did not trash any teammate by name. She did not say anything that isn’t true or that isn’t also being said by anyone who pays even the slightest attention to the WNBA. Yet there are people who love to tear Reese down, and they took the opportunity and ran with it.
“I would apologize to my teammates, which I already have, about the article and how it was misconstrued, about what was said,” Reese said after Wednesday night’s game. “I just have to be better with my language, because I know it’s not the message it’s the messenger, and understanding what I say can be taken any kind of way.
“I just have to be better and grow from this.”
No, the people who need to be better are those who are still patronizing women athletes. They’re tough, in every sense of the word, and they shouldn’t have to apologize for it.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.