WNBA great Lisa Leslie says shes gonna fix | College News

Lisa Leslie paid Angel Reese one of the largest compliments a younger WNBA participant might obtain.

“I feel like you’re me 2.0,” Leslie mentioned on this week’s episode of Reese’s “Unapologetically Angel” podcast.

Leslie is one of the WNBA’s all-time greats. A 3-time league MVP, she spent all 12 of her seasons with the Sparks, main them to the WNBA title in 2001 and 2002 and was named the Finals MVP each occasions.

Reese is off to a robust begin to her skilled profession. Last yr, the Chicago Sky ahead completed second in rookie of the yr voting, behind Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark, and averaged 13.6 factors and a league-high 13.1 rebounds per sport.

There is one space, nonetheless, the place Leslie feels Reese might use some enchancment — and the eight-time All-Star is more than prepared to offer her help.

“The biggest advice I have for you is gonna be how you shoot your layups, period,” the USC star from the early Nineteen Nineties informed Reese. “Like, we’re gonna fix that. That’s fixable for you.”

Reese made solely 42% (136 of 321) of her layup makes an attempt final season. Leslie made 55% of her pictures from underneath the basket in her first WNBA season and nonetheless completed with a profession layup average of 64%.

“Just the idea that you want to get better, like I love that,” Leslie mentioned. “For me to hear from you, and see that you’re like, ‘Yes, I want you to work with me, I want you to help me, I want to get better’ — that’s what it’s about. The fact that you already have that attitude? You’re going to get better, and I can help you get better. I’m positive.”

“Yay!” Reese responded. “Thank you!”

The two ladies first met on the 2023 NCAA ladies’s Final Four, the place Reese led Louisiana State to its first national title. Reese mentioned she heard from Leslie about a yr later, when Reese was considering her basketball future.

“I remember you called me and were like, ‘You are ready for the WNBA,’” mentioned Reese, the No. 7 total choose within the 2024 draft, including that Leslie informed her, “No matter what anybody tells you, you will play in the WNBA and you will succeed. The skill — everything will transition over.”

”You at all times instilled that confidence into me,” Reese mentioned. “You didn’t have to do that. … I didn’t have a lot of pros to look up to or have in my corner, and you were somebody that always was super special to me.”

“I meant that when I called you,” Leslie mentioned. “I think you need real voices that support you and say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna be amazing. Like, I see it.’”

She added: “I don’t know what the scouts were looking at. I really don’t. But falling to seven, you know, God has a plan and it is what it is. You ended up in Chicago and I’m just telling you, you were ready.”

Also on the podcast, Leslie had high reward for present USC star JuJu Watkins, who has helped carry the Trojans back into relevance during the last two years very like Leslie did many years in the past.

“That’s the hardest thing to do,” mentioned Leslie, who led the Trojans to the Elite Eight in 1992 and 1994 and was named the Naismith national ladies’s participant of the yr in 1994. “And I’m so proud of JuJu Watkins for pretty much doing the exact same thing. It is not easy to go to a program that is in last place or second-to-last place and you’re coming with this big name and you’re hoping that you can draw other athletes to come in. It took a lot.”