Sports
Will Angel Reese enter 2024 WNBA Draft? LSU basketball star teases decision ahead of senior day – Sporting News
Should I stay or should I go? It’s both a classic song by The Clash and the decision that will be at the center of Angel Reese’s mind until the end of LSU’s season. But she could be hinting at a timeline for her decision.
The Tigers will honor Reese during the team’s Senior Day, which is set for the March 3 game against Kentucky, the team said in a video posted to X. Reese appeared to suggest in a quote tweet of the post that a decision on her future could be made around that time.
“Should I stay, should I go? I don’t know,” Reese wrote.
“Should I stay, should I go? I don’t know” 🥺💜💛 https://t.co/1zSvq9yr4V
Among her peers, UConn’s Paige Bueckers announced her decision to stay with the Huskies for another season on her own senior night, but Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has yet to reveal her plans.
Reese, who transferred to LSU from Maryland after the 2021-22 season, has become a sensation with the Tigers. She averaged 23.0 points and 15.4 rebounds in 2022-23 and helped lead LSU to the program’s first national championship in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
Here’s the latest on Reese’s decision.
MORE: What year is Caitlin Clark at Iowa?
Reese has not announced whether she will return to LSU for her fifth year of NCAA eligibility or head to the WNBA.
She’s projected as a first-round pick for the 2024 WNBA Draft, but she also has one more year of college eligibility thanks to the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season.
The 21-year-old forward is projected as a top 10 pick by most outlets, including No. 6 to the Washington Mystics by ESPN and Sporting News, and No. 13 (the first pick of the second round) by the Sky in Yahoo Sports‘ mock draft.
Back in September, Reese was projected by ESPN to land eighth overall, which her coach, Kim Mulkey, said she took personally.
“That was an insult to her,” Mulkey said, per Just Women’s Sports. “We talked about the thing she needs to work on. Whether she gets picked higher than that or not, it still motivates her. She gets motivated in practice with someone going head-to-head with her or talking trash back at her. She’s a competitor.”
Reese has an NIL valuation of $1.7 million, according to On3, ranking her as the seventh-highest collegiate athlete and No. 1 among women’s basketball players.
She has deals with Beats by Dre, Tampax, Reebok, Airbnb, Amazon, PlayStation and Raising Cane’s, among others, per On3.
In 2023, the average WNBA player salary was $147,745 and the max salary was $234,936. In 2024, the supermaximum will be $241,984, per Her Hoop Stats.
For rookies, though, the salary scale is much lower. The top four draft picks in the 2024 WNBA Draft will make $76,535 in the first year of their contracts.
And don’t forget, NIL earnings and WNBA salary do not cancel each other out. Reese would gain a WNBA contract, but she likely would hold onto many of her NIL deals as she made the leap to the professional game. And she could continue to earn money through other endorsements and partnerships.
Edward Sutelan is a content producer at The Sporting News.