INDIANAPOLIS — Her teammates didn’t see it coming. Rachel Banham told the Sun-Times she felt “blindsided” by Angel Reese’s interview, where Reese called for roster upgrades and raised the possibility of leaving if things didn’t “pan out.”
The comments surprised coach Tyler Marsh, too. He knew Reese was frustrated with the season but said her concerns had not been shared with him directly.
After the game Wednesday, the team held a players-only meeting so that everyone could communicate. Banham felt that’s what had been lacking. Ariel Atkins agreed.
“It was simply out of respect for everybody in the room, one through 12,” Atkins told the Sun-Times.
Atkins addressed Reese directly, while Banham said her teammates voiced everything she felt. At this point, she’s more resigned.
“I think I just don’t really care,” she said. “I’m so over all of this s—. If I was younger, it would have affected me more. But I’m grown, and I just don’t care.”
For a player often called the heart of the locker room, though, there’s a part of her that does.
“It does affect me still because of what everybody is constantly saying about the rest of us,” Banham said. “I never want any of my teammates to feel any type of way.”
She didn’t want Reese to hurt, either. The meeting, in her view, was partly to support her young teammate. The team, as a whole, appreciates that Reese’s comments came from her competitive fire.
“She obviously doesn’t want to disrespect us or anything like that,” Elizabeth Williams told the Sun-Times. “Ultimately, I think the goal of [the interview] was just to share things she wanted to see in the future for the team and improvements that could be made.”
Marsh agreed.
“Angel wants to win, and she wants to have the things in place to be able to get there, as do all of us,” he said.
Ultimately, Banham said Reese’s comments should have been addressed in the locker room, not publicly. She and Williams now see this as a learning opportunity for Reese, a young pro learning how to navigate a massive following.
“She has a big influence, whether she says something good or bad, people like to interpret it a certain way,” Williams said. “I think she understands she just has to be mindful of the language she uses.”
Reese acknowledged that Wednesday, saying she was frustrated with herself and didn’t mean to put down her teammates.
“They’ve been through this with me throughout the whole year,” Reese said of her teammates. “They busted their ass just how I busted my ass.”
Reese did not travel with them to Indiana, having received a one-game suspension from the league for reaching the limit for technical fouls. Now, the reunion with her teammates will have to wait.
In a statement issued Friday evening, the Sky suspended Reese for the first half of the next game in Las Vegas for comments that were “detrimental” to the team.
Marsh called it a “top down” organizational decision and declined to share which comments were viewed as detrimental. Atkins implied that the team supported the decision.
“Ownership handled it how they see fit,” she told the Sun-Times at shootaround Friday. “They have full support from our team.”
The team’s statement declared the matter is “resolved.” In reality, the matter has just begun.
Marsh said that his follow-up conversations with Reese have been good and that her apology went a long way.
Atkins told the Sun-Times that she hasn’t spoken to Reese since the meeting and that with eight days left in the season, her priority is moving forward.
“We just here trying to do our jobs on a day-to-day,” Atkins said.
The question now is how the organization will define “forward.”