Angel Reese Makes WNBA History with 500 Rebounds

Angel Reese didn’t just grab another rebound on Saturday. She grabbed a piece of WNBA history.

Midway through the first half of the Atlanta Dream’s matchup with the Chicago Sky, Reese hauled in her 500th rebound of the season, becoming the first player in league history to hit that mark in a single year. It’s a barrier no one had touched before, and she crossed it with weeks still echoing from her last milestone.

She already owned the record. Now she’s stretching it.

Reese set the WNBA’s single-season rebounding mark back on Aug. 24 in Atlanta’s 78–71 win over the Los Angeles Sparks, a night that felt like a coronation of the league’s new rebounding standard. After that game, she distilled her approach into one ruthless line.

“Anything that goes up is mine,” she said, via USA Today’s Cydney Henderson.

It wasn’t a slogan. It’s been a nightly reality.

Reese’s season has become a catalogue of firsts and shattered ceilings. On Aug. 30, she broke the WNBA’s single-season record for double-doubles, racking up her 29th. That number keeps growing, too, fueled by a blend of relentlessness on the glass and a steadily expanding offensive game.

Through 40 appearances heading into Saturday, the 24-year-old is averaging a career-high 16.5 points and a league-leading 12.4 rebounds per game. She’s not padding empty box scores, either. She’s adding 2.8 assists, 1.8 steals and 0.7 blocks a night, impacting every layer of the floor.

The effect on Atlanta is stark. With Reese on the court, the Dream post a plus-10.2 net rating, per WNBA.com. When she sits, that number plummets to plus-0.2. That’s the difference between a contender’s edge and a coin flip.

Her rise has mirrored Atlanta’s climb. The Dream enter the stretch run at 27–14, sitting fourth in the WNBA standings as the playoffs loom, with Reese anchoring the frontcourt and defining the team’s identity. Her consistency has become their foundation.

“I want to be one of (the best) when I walk away from the game,” she said back in August.

The way this season is unfolding, that conversation may arrive sooner than anyone expected.

For now, every missed shot is still a chance. Every ball in the air is still hers. And every game is another step in a season that’s rewriting what dominance on the boards looks like in the WNBA.