Angel Reese still has ways to go to provide Sky with game-changing skill

All the best teams are built around an exceptional forward. The Sky obviously wanted to follow that blueprint when they drafted Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese in 2024. Both are talented players, but playing two non-shooting bigs together isn’t easy in today’s game, and the team has struggled with spacing issues since it drafted the duo. Even the Atlanta Dream eventually had to pivot from their Brittney Griner-Bri Jones pairing last season. 

The easiest way to solve that problem would be for the Sky to turn Angel Reese into a 3-point threat. She is already the more versatile of the two and can act as a playmaker at the forward spot. Adding a reliable 3-point shot to her arsenal would make playing her and Cardoso next to each other a lot easier. 

Reese went 1-2 in her short, four-game stint with the Rose this Unrivaled season, but doesn’t look like a real 3-point threat in the WNBA’s five-on-five setting quite yet. 

Angel Reese already upped her 3-point volume

The biggest shot of Kamilla Cardoso’s career so far was a 3-pointer. In her senior season in college, Cardoso hit a buzzer-beater to lead the Gamecocks to a win over Tennessee in the SEC Tournament. 

Despite that huge success, Cardoso hasn’t been very trigger-happy from three in the W. She took two threes in her first two seasons and made one of them. 

Reese has been a much more willing shooter. She took 16 threes as a rookie and made three of them. As a sophomore, she took 22 threes and sank four of them. That’s not a great success rate but at least Reese isn’t scared to take long shots when the opportunity presents itself. 

Considering how strong Reese is on the glass, the Sky shouldn’t want her to spend too much time away from the basket, but being able to punish defenses from behind the arc would make Reese and her team much more difficult to guard. 

Most importantly, the Sky need better shooting around Reese and Cardoso

While it would be great to see Reese improve as a 3-point shooter, the most important thing for the Sky is to fix the spacing around Reese AND Cardoso. The Sky finished ninth in 3-point percentage last season, sinking only 33% of their 20.2 attempts per game. 

Only four players on the roster attempted at least three shots from behind the arc per game: Ariel Atkins, Rachel Banham, Kia Nurse, and Rebecca Allen. Atkins led that group by shooting 36.1%. Banham also hit over 35% of her shots. Nurse and Allen shot 33.5% and 31.8%, respectively. 

It is difficult to create space for two bigs who thrive in the paint without any volume shooters on the roster who can sink close to 40% of their shots.