Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream open the 2026 WNBA Finals on Saturday, Oct. 17, against the Golden State Valkyries at Chase Center in San Francisco. The Dream are chasing the first championship in franchise history. Reese, the league’s Defensive Player of the Year, is the biggest reason many believe they can get it.
Atlanta has not lost a game this postseason. The Dream won five straight against Washington and New York. Golden State, in only its second season, swept the defending champion Las Vegas Aces to get here. One of these franchises will lift a trophy for the first time. Reese already made a quiet trade to reach this moment, and most fans scrolled right past it.
How did Angel Reese predict this Finals run?
On Oct. 10, 2025, the night the Aces finished off the Phoenix Mercury for the title, Angel Reese was home watching. She hopped on X and posted that she was manifesting the Finals. She was still a member of the Chicago Sky with no guarantee of a new team.
After Atlanta clinched against New York last week, she reshared that same post and pointed out it had taken 364 days. She later told reporters she spent two straight years on her couch watching other people play for rings.
Why did the Chicago Sky trade Angel Reese?
Her final stretch in Chicago got messy. She publicly criticized the front office, drew a suspension for half a game and was traded in April for two late first round picks. The Sky won 23 games and lost 61 during her two seasons. On the way out, the franchise hinted she was bad for the culture.
That label hit different for a young Black woman who has been picked apart since the 2023 national title game at LSU. Critics clipped her misses and turned her rebounds into a punchline called mebounds. Reese trademarked the word and sold it back to them on merchandise.
What changed for Angel Reese in Atlanta?
Karl Smesko happened. The analytics guru from Florida Gulf Coast built a system that prizes offensive rebounds, forced turnovers and shots from deep. Angel Reese fit it like a glove. Atlanta posted the best offensive rebounding margin in WNBA history at 4.3 per game.
Smesko also became her personal shooting coach. She made 19% from beyond the arc in the regular season. In the playoffs that number sits at 39%. She is averaging 18 points and 8.4 rebounds, and Atlanta has outscored opponents by 58 points with her on the floor, the best mark of any player this postseason.
Can the Dream beat the Valkyries?
The regular season says it will be tough. Golden State won all three meetings and held Atlanta to 25.3% from deep. Gabby Williams averaged 22.7 points through the semifinals, and coach Natalie Nakase runs the league’s top regular season defense.
Atlanta has its own questions. Allisha Gray missed the last two games against New York with a hand injury but practiced Thursday. Games 3 and 4 move to State Farm Arena, which seats more than 17,000, instead of the 3,500 seat Gateway Center Arena. Reese has said she will miss the closeness of Gateway but welcomes the bigger crowd.
What is Angel Reese giving up for a ring?
Here is the part almost nobody is talking about. Last October, the same week she posted that Finals wish, Reese became the first professional athlete to walk the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She wore the wings and called it destiny.
This week she told her roughly 5.3 million Instagram followers, the most of any WNBA player, that she will not walk this year. She said she will forever cherish earning those wings.
So the woman who watched last year’s Finals from her couch while preparing for a runway has flipped the order. The wings can wait. If Atlanta wins four games, Reese becomes the first star since Breanna Stewart to win a title within her first three seasons. Last year she manifested it. Saturday she goes to take it.
