Angel Reese opens up on Caitlin Clark and reveals her ultimate dream for the two WNBA rivals

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese represent basketball’s most promising rival duo since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the NBA four decades earlier. Only unlike the legendary Lakers and Celtics stars, Clark and Reese still have a chance to join forces.

‘One day, hopefully, we’ll be teammates,’ Reese told The Wall Street Journal Magazine in a piece about herself and league MVP A’Ja Wilson.

It’s not the first time the Chicago Sky power forward has admitted her desire to play with the Indiana Fever’s rookie sensation. Reese, a former LSU star, actually said as much as she was beginning her final season in Baton Rouge in 2023 – less than a year after her Tigers beat Clark’s Iowa in the NCAA Finals.

‘My life literally just changed from that game,’ Reese told the Journal of the 2023 national championship, which remains one of the highest-rated games in the history of women’s basketball.

Of course, Reese infamously directed wrestler John Cena‘s ‘You Can’t See Me’ hand gesture at Clark during that final – a move the Iowa star had flashed at another player earlier in the tournament.

Angel Reese and A’Ja Wilson were interviewed by The Wall Street Journal Magazine

Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark visit the Empire State Building before the draft on April 15

Angel Reese delivers John Cena’s ‘you can’t see me’ hand gesture at Caitlin Clark in 2023

But Clark’s gesture was directed at a white player, then-Louisville guard Hailey Van Lith, and failed to make the same impact on social media as Reese’s.

With the social media darling known as Bayou Barbie, the public reaction was far different. Many called her ‘classless’ while others resorted to racist attacks.

As would be the case throughout her rookie WNBA season, Clark wasn’t offended. She expected some chirping and was well aware that she had done the same thing to Van Lith a week earlier.

‘Everybody knew there was going to be a little trash talk,’ Clark said in 2023.

Clark and Reese are already inextricably linked in women’s basketball history.

That 2023 NCAA Finals matchup, when Reese’s Tigers upset Clark’s Hawkeyes, remains one of the highest-rated games in the sport’s history. And their April 4 rematch in the Elite 8 ultimately topped that mark.

And those record ratings continued in the WNBA, which smashed all of its sales and viewership records in 2024. Even in the ongoing New York-Minnesota finals, the league has seen an 82-percent uptick from a year ago by averaging 1.24 million viewers pe game.

‘We brought a lot of fans to this league,’ Reese said of herself and Clark. ‘And I think we’re going to continue to do that.