Angel Reese has had a career-best week with the Atlanta Dream, breaking WNBA rebounding records and showing her transformation into an all-around force, while turning online trolls' 'mebounds' taunts into a brand.
Record-breaking stretch
In the Dream's past four games – all wins, all on the road – Reese has delivered standout performances. She held her own against reigning MVP A'ja Wilson in Las Vegas, scored 20 points on nine shots against Los Angeles, added a career-high 31 points and 14 rebounds against Phoenix for her 25th double-double of the season, and grabbed 26 rebounds in 40 minutes against the Sparks, breaking the WNBA's single-game and single-season rebounding records.
The stretch has strengthened Atlanta's chances of locking up the second overall playoff seed behind Minnesota. Reese's summer move to Atlanta has yielded obvious strides in her game, with personal highs in scoring (16.1 points per game) and total minutes played as her confidence handling the ball, shooting from outside and contesting shots grows.
Dealing with trolls
Online trolls roast every flubbed layup, every airball, every mental lapse, and accuse Reese of missing on purpose to pad her rebounding stats, dismissing her putbacks as 'mebounds'. The vitriol is a relatively recent development in a basketball story that once hewed exclusively to the painted lines. Before she was a hater's delight, Reese was the Baltimore area's teen phenom, the Maryland transfer who led LSU to an NCAA title in 2023.
The stakes in this clash were made clear this season when Toronto Tempo coach Sandy Brondello drew a one-game suspension for referring to Reese as a 'protected species'. The stark contrast in styles between Caitlin Clark (the three-point chucker) and Reese (the grinder) gives the keyboard mob more material to distort.
Turning trolling into a brand
Last fall, in response to online trolls, Reese filed a trademark for 'mebounds' to make it a slogan for a one-off line of shirts and hats, with proceeds going toward cyberbullying prevention. '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.'
