ESPN: Atlanta Dream fall to the Golden State Valkyries in game 7 of the WNBA Finals
Welp, although there’s a lot of positive about how the Atlanta Dream made it as far as they did, playing in the first-ever game 7 of the WNBA Finals in history, they proved that they weren’t much different than a lot of the other professional sports organizations in Atlanta, when it comes to falling short of delivering championships.
No, this isn’t a sexist post meant to clown on women or the WNBA; I like to hope that throughout the years, I’ve been able to somewhat portray my support for women and women’s sports, obviously being a father to daughters means such support is a given. Sure, the WNBA has dealt with a lot of perception issues and jokes throughout the past, but I don’t really feel much compulsion to partake in them anymore, because most of the time, they’re just not really funny.
I actually was paying attention to the WNBA Finals and pursuit of championship for the Atlanta Dream, and was excited when they won, and disappointed when they lost, as much as I was following the NLCS and World Series.
The obvious reason is that the Dream winning meant a championship for Atlanta, even as little regard the Dream and the WNBA are given in comparison to the big three of men’s sports. Championships are championships, and parades and acknowledgment would be expected, and it would have been great for the Dream to also shake the monkey off their back that they can’t win the big one, seeing as how this was the fourth time in which Atlanta has reached the finals and lost every single time.
But above all else, is more of a selfish reason, because if there’s one thing a sports fan likes almost more than anything, it’s being right about sports, and I had made a prediction very early on, basically when Angel Reese was traded to Atlanta, that Atlanta was probably the perfect place for someone like Reese, and the season would either be a colossal failure, or a colossal success, with there being no middle ground.
Although the Dream did go as far as humanly possible in the season, which some may construe as a colossal success, failing in game 7 is about as heartbreaking as losing gets, and could be construed as a colossal failure. But the point remains that there was no middle ground, and the general success of Angel Reese on the Dream was sort of validated, even if they didn’t bring home the ship.
It’s an unpopular opinion amongst the internet masses, but I am a supporter of Angel Reese. I know she’s a polarizing figure, and I would wager to say that more people probably don’t like her than they do, but I do like her and would say I’m a fan. It’s very surface level, but I always appreciate people who bust hype, and not that I have anything against Caitlin Clark, fewer things were cool to see than when in 2023 when Angel Reese and LSU stopped Caitlin’s Iowa squad in the NCAA tournament, and dropped an icon of a photo, pointing at her ring finger.
I admire how unapologetic Angel Reese is, taking absolutely everything that is said about her and shrugging it off like the nothing that most of the remarks are. Nobody can make her feel bad about the perception that she’s too ghetto, being black, or any critiques about her appearance of style. People knock her game, her shooting form, poor field goal percentage, or dribbling and running.
When the internet coined the phrase ‘mebounds’ to mock her propensity to collect rebounds from her own misses Angel Reese went out and trademarked it; if people were going to hate, might as well put herself in a position to possibly earn from it.
When she was traded to Atlanta, I saw a scenario of a strong black woman coming into a city that has a very proud and large black community, and imagined that this was probably the best town for someone like her to flourish, and possibly become a role model and hero to all the little girls growing up in the area whom might have felt that they didn’t have anyone to aspire to be.
But at the same time, I’ve seen lots of athletes joint the Braves or Falcons or Hawks, that I’ve thought similarly about in the past to not-successful results, so the theory remained the same for Reese as well; it was either going to go really, really well, or she and the city would butt heads, and it would end very, very poorly.
Fortunately, it appeared to be a match, Reese performed like the Ben Wallace that I oft-compare her game to, as low-offense, high-defense stalwart, and the Dream had one of their best seasons ever.
Unfortunately, even the net positive that Angel Reese contributed to the team still couldn’t overcome Atlanta being Atlanta, and just like all their professional sports on men’s side, just couldn’t get the job done. And I was all ready to write about how nice it is to be right about sports, and have photoshops done of Angel flashing her ring finger to Caitlin at the pro-level, but alas, instead we just have same shit, different team.
But hey, it was nice to be close to being right about something when everyone else wasn’t even willing to even acknowledge its existence.
