Angel Reese Named 2026 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year After Record-Setting First Season in Atlanta

ATLANTA — Angel Reese told her coaches at the start of the season exactly how this was going to end. “I told my coaches earlier in the season I am going to be the Defensive Player of the Year,” Reese said this week. “I don’t know if it’s going to be this year, I don’t know if it’s going to be next year, but I’m challenging myself, and I want you guys to challenge me every day to be that.”

It turned out to be this year. On Thursday, the WNBA announced that Reese, the Atlanta Dream forward, is the 2026 Defensive Player of the Year — the first player in franchise history to win the award. Reese, 24, received 46 of 74 votes from a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters, finishing comfortably ahead of Golden State Valkyries forward Gabby Williams, who received 20 votes, and Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, who got four. It is the capstone of a season that rewrote the league’s record books and carried Atlanta to the WNBA semifinals for the first time since 2018.

A season built on the glass

Defense, in Reese’s case, starts with possession. The 6-foot-4 forward averaged a career-high 16.4 points and a league-leading 12.1 rebounds across 43 games in her third WNBA season, the third consecutive year she has averaged a double-double. She led the league in both total rebounds and offensive rebounds per game (4.8), and set new single-season WNBA records with 521 total rebounds, 206 offensive rebounds, and 32 double-doubles. Her single-game record of 26 rebounds against the Los Angeles Sparks may stand for a long time.

But the steals tell the other half of the story. Reese averaged 1.8 steals per game — third in the league — with 77 total thefts, and set a career high with 32 blocked shots. She did not spend the season parked in the paint waiting for rebounds. She switched onto guards, crowded driving lanes, recovered to shooters, and contested 507 field-goal attempts, the 10th most in the league. The Dream allowed 7.9 fewer points per 100 possessions with Reese on the floor than without her, the second-best defensive differential among players who logged at least 500 minutes.

“She can guard any position,” Dream head coach Karl Smesko said. “She’s not afraid of any challenge. She relishes these opportunities and steps up in big moments.”

First in franchise history

The award puts Reese in the company of the game’s defining defenders, and it ends A’ja Wilson’s recent run — Wilson won the award in 2022 and 2023 and shared the honor with Minnesota’s Alanna Smith last season. Behind Reese, Atlanta finished third in the league in defensive rating (103.5), and her rebounding helped the Dream allow a league-low 9.5 second-chance points per game.

It also completes a remarkable first season in a new city. Reese spent the first two years of her career with the Chicago Sky, the team that selected her No. 7 overall in the 2024 draft out of LSU, where she won a national championship. She earned All-Star nods in both Chicago seasons. In April, Atlanta acquired her in a preseason trade for first-round picks in 2027 and 2028 — and she took her game to another level on both ends of the floor.

“I always think team success leads to individual success,” Reese told ESPN. “I’ve always been a great defender … but I knew coming to Atlanta, it was going to put me on a bigger stage … and lead to wins.”

Sharing the credit

Typical of the night, Reese tried to spread the award around. “I have the trophy, but I definitely want Jordin [Canada] and Rhyne [Howard] to sign it because I think they deserve it just as much as I do,” she said. “I’m grateful for Atlanta, I’m grateful for my teammates and my coaches and all the supporting staff that supports us. It’s just the beginning.”

She has a point about her teammates. Reese’s 1.8 steals per game ranked third in the league behind Dream teammates Howard (2.3) and Canada (1.9) — Atlanta’s perimeter pressure and interior rebounding fed each other all season long. All three combined to give the Dream the third-best defense in the WNBA.

What comes next

The timing could not be better for Atlanta. Reese helped the Dream advance to the WNBA playoff semifinals for the first time since 2018 in her first year with the franchise. Atlanta hosts Game 1 of the semifinals on Sunday against New York, which swept Minnesota to become the first No. 8 seed to eliminate a No. 1 seed in the league’s 30-year history.

For Reese, the award is both a destination and a starting line. The three-time All-Star arrived in Atlanta with a promise to herself to become the best defender in the league. By season’s end, she had done exactly that — and the trophy, as she promised her coaches, is hers.