Angel Reese owned up to being the “bad guy” while discussing Caitlin Clark and how she has affected the WNBA in a postgame interview with reporters on Monday, June 3. Ultimately, the Chicago Sky player admitted that she was just happy to see how far women’s basketball has come. “I think so many people are watching women’s basketball right now,” she said. “Yeah, negative things have probably been said about me, but honestly, I’ll take that because look where women’s basketball is.”
While Caitlin, 22, has certainly generated a lot of interest in the WNBA, Angel, 22, admitted that she knows that she’s going to have a major impact on the history of women’s basketball. “I’ll take that role. I’ll take the bad guy role, and I’ll continue to take that on and be that for my teammates, and I know I’ll go down in history,” she said, via People. “I’ll look back in 20 years and be like: ‘Yeah, the reason why we’re watching women’s basketball is not just because of one person, it’s because of me too, and I want you to realize that.”
The interview came just days after Angel’s teammate Chennedy Carter, 25, fouled Caitlin with a hard shove. At the time, the refs called it a “common foul,” but it has since been upgraded to a flagrant 1 violation. Chennedy has said that she doesn’t regret pushing Caitlin with her shoulder. “I’m going to compete and play 100% hard no matter who it is or who we’re playing,” she said, per CBS Chicago.
That same game, Angel was also fined $5,000 for skipping a post-game interview in violation with the WNBA’s media policy. “That was something on my behalf that I wasn’t able to do at the moment just because of the timeline of it but [I’m] making sure moving forward I’ll take time out for you guys,” Angel said about the violation after Monday’s game.