Lynx president and coach Cheryl Reeve passed on Angel Reese, but could and should have made it work

The Lynx and the no-name Washington Mystics returned to WNBA competition on Thursday night at Target Center. They had been off for 29 days due to Olympic break, although the quality of play in the first half made it look as though the participants had not aimed a basketball in the direction of a hoop in roughly five years.

Cathy Engelbert, the WNBA commissioner, was in attendance as the Lynx had a brief ceremony honoring their Olympic connection: Cheryl Reeve as the coach of the U.S. gold medalists, Napheesa Collier as a starter for that team, plus Alanna Smith for the bronze-winning Australians and Bridget Carleton for Canada.

At halftime, Engelbert had a brief media session in which she talked of the rise in talent and interest in the WNBA. This will include expansion to 14 teams over the next two years — to San Francisco in 2025 and to Toronto in 2026.

Teresa Resch of Lakefield, Minn. and Jackson County Central resigned a position as vice president of basketball operations for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors in early March. In late May, it was announced Resch would be the president of Toronto’s WNBA team.

So, yeah, the WNBA is growing and improving, but not in Thursday’s first half at Target Center.

The “who-dat” Mystics led 37-35 at the half, by going 14-for-36 from the field (6-for-19 on threes). The Lynx were 12-for-35 from the field, including a rim-denting 3-for-15 on threes.

This would have been a fine time for a bit of rookie energy off the bench, but first-round draftee Alissa Pili remained where she has been more often than not throughout this turnaround season for Reeve’s club: sitting in a chair on the sideline.

Pili had a 20-point night early in the schedule, and with that, she has an average of 2.4 points per game. She has played in 16 games for a total of 102 minutes.

The Lynx did wake up in the fourth quarter and pulled away for a 79-68 win. They have the privilege of playing the woeful Mystics again Saturday on the road.

The Lynx should be 19-8 with 13 regular-season games remaining after that one. They are in position to make a playoff run for the first time since 2017, which was one season before Maya Moore walked away.

The Lynx had 40 playoff wins and four WNBA titles in Moore’s first seven seasons, and they have a total of two playoff wins in the past five seasons without her.

Which begs the question: could Reeve, also the team president, really afford to not draft talent because she didn’t want to coach someone? That is what occurred in the mid-April draft, when she traded down to avoid taking Angel Reese with the seventh pick, leaving the Lynx to take a flier on Pili at No. 8.

OK, Reese would be 50-50 to beat the star of your average junior high team in a game of H-O-R-S-E. And, yeah, Reeve had decided on a post-Sylvia Fowles, five-out offense, meaning Angel could look like a lost puppy a lot of the time on the offensive end.

Yet I was discussing this with a colleague Friday and we made this decision: Reeve passing on Reese was the equivalent of an NBA team passing on Dennis Rodman to take … who, Jarrett Culver?

Reese is a 6-3 forward for Chicago, was an All-Star and leads the WNBA with 12 rebounds per game. The critics will point out a fair share of those are retrieving her misses.

So, we don’t like that anymore … go get your own miss? Rodman did that, or Charles Barkley, and noted national broadcast analyst Jack Ramsay would react joyously.

Reese is a different cat, for sure. She is tall and attractive, and she skipped a practice to appear at the Met Gala on opening night in New York.

We also remember Reese for taunting Caitlin Clark at the end of LSU’s victory over Iowa late in the 2023 national championship game. And we remember the video of her cheering from the sideline across the court when a Sky teammate mugged Clark under the basket early in their WNBA careers.

There’s also the fact the Lynx’s Diamond Miller — the No. 2 overall choice in 2023 and good when healthy — and Reese were teammates at Maryland. Everything wasn’t copacetic there, before Reese transferred to LSU to play for the frenzied Kim Mulkey.

None of this changes my view.

If you’re a fine coach worthy of leading the U.S. Olympic effort, you should have been a coach willing to take on a big personality with a talent that goes well beyond the fine sideline deportment currently being witnessed with your 2024 first-rounder.