Angel Reese marks new career milestone with Defensive Player of the Year award

Angel Reese may have deserved the Defensive Player of the Year award in Unrivaled, which she was announced as the winner of on Saturday.
But there’s been plenty of social media opposition to the selection, mainly grounded in one simple fact: The numbers don’t back up the choice.

Defense is more than counting stats, of course. But let’s start there.

Reese averaged 0.7 steals and 0.6 blocks per game in the 3-on-3 competition, not bad but nothing to write home about.

Napheesa Collier led the whole league in both categories. ‘Phee snatched two steals per game and averaged 1.4 blocks per contest.

Reese’s best argument for the award is that as the defensive anchor of her team, Rose, they allowed the second-fewest total points in the six-team league. But in the small sample of a 14-game regular season, just being second out of six doesn’t mean a whole lot, either.

The lanky lefty did average a league-best 12.1 rebounds per game, but if we’re only counting defensive rebounds, Reese was actually third in that category behind Breanna Stewart and Collier. Stewart averaged more blocks and steals per game than Reese, too.

At least Reese got the positive news of the award on Saturday, because she was also ruled out of Sunday’s semifinal due to a hand injury sustained in the final game of the regular season. Reese had previously had surgery on that same left wrist.