The Atlanta Dream knew what was ahead of them on Saturday. The win at home in Game 6 was big, but just as they had adjusted, they expected the Golden State Valkyries to adjust, too.
It wasn’t lost on head coach Karl Smesko.
“From training camp to the very last day, it’s as far as it can go,” Smesko said pregame. “And at the end of this, we’re either going to be celebrating or devastated.”
In a series filled with counter-attacks on both ends, the Dream looked to have the advantage and a path to celebrating thanks to Jordin Canada’s second-quarter performance.
Instead, though, Gabby Williams put together a historic performance, resulting in the devastation that Smesko spoke on.
“I love our team. I’m proud of our players, and the season they have had is remarkable,” Smesko said on the podium after the Valkyries were crowned as the champions.
“Obviously it’s beyond frustrating that we didn’t finish what we set out to do today, but it doesn’t change how I feel about our players. I love them. The effort they put in this year was remarkable, coming together as a team, fantastic. I feel very fortunate that I was around to coach them.”
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While watching the game, it’s easy to question whether the Dream could have done anything differently with the way Williams was playing. She scored 28 second-half points en route to being named WNBA Finals MVP, and no matter the looks the Dream threw at her, Williams got to her spots and hit her shots.
It doesn’t help, though, that the Dream only got 14 combined points from Angel Reese and Rhyne Howard. Reese, the likely Finals MVP if the Dream won, with Canada making a late push, was held in check and took only seven shots in the deciding game.
For Howard, it continued a trend of a disappointing postseason from the offensive side of the ball.
Devastating, really.
It doesn’t, though, take away from what the Dream achieved this season. They were the consensus No. 3 team in preseason polls, and they were within five points of winning the WNBA title with a core that returned its five starters and brought in not just Reese, but DeWanna Bonner and Isobel Borlase — the two reserves that Smesko trusted throughout the playoffs.
“It’s tough, especially with the great group that I’ve honestly had the honor to battle with all year,” Reese said after Game 7. “They changed my life, and I’m just so grateful for them, and I’m so thankful for them. It is tough at the moment, but we’ll be back.”
It’s a feeling of déjà vu, in a way, because Canada said nearly the same words after the Dream lost to the Indiana Fever in three games in the first round last year. She said that what’s delayed is not denied, and that the Dream would be back. She guaranteed it.
And, well, not to sound like a broken record, but when Canada was at the podium after the game, she doubled down on her comments.
“Nobody wanted us here, and we got here on our own, as a team, as a unit, and everybody that’s in that locker room, we have been saying that’s all we need,” Canada said. “Yeah, we didn’t get the end result that we wanted, but at the end of the day, what’s delayed is not denied, and I do believe this team will be back for years to come.”
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The Dream are in a position to do that, too, as they signed Canada, Howard, Allisha Gray, Naz Hillmon and Brionna Jones to multi-year deals in the offseason. While it sounds easy on paper, Smesko and general manager Dan Padover will first have to answer a few questions.
The first being the depth — or lack thereof — that the Dream have. Te-Hina Paopao didn’t develop as they hoped in her second season, as she was targeted defensively constantly and operates better as an off-ball microwave scorer than as a point guard. Madina Okot showed flashes all season, but once teams got more film on her, the scout was out on her — especially defensively.
Will Bonner return next year for a final push for another title, or was this one-and-done?
The second question — and the largest looming one — is Reese’s contract.
Yes, she’ll be back in Atlanta next year and for years to come. But because she made the All-WNBA second team, she’s eligible for the Exceptional Performance on Initial Contract (EPIC) extension this season. Her contract is expected to be $396,282, per Her Hoop Stats, but if she opts to negotiate an extension, that could increase to the league’s standard maximum salary.
Though the 2027 salary cap is not yet known, it could rise as high as around $7.91 million, which would bring the supermax (which is set at 17% of the cap) around $1.35 million. This puts the Dream in an interesting position, where they would have three roster spots to fill and not enough space to do it, at around $780,000.
To make the salary cap work at those numbers, the Dream would need to make additional moves to free up space to fill the roster with league minimum contracts, let alone impact free agents. Or, if they go down the path of an EPIC extension, Reese could take below the maximum allowed salary to make it easier for the team to maneuver in free agency.
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That’s not the players’ focus right now. They’re processing the loss. They’re trying to navigate the feelings of dealing with the devastating loss while reflecting on the good that happened this year. The success. The failure. The growth.
“When individually you get better in the offseason, you get better collectively, and you can see that,” Reese said. “Smesko puts a lot of work in, and I’m sure he’s going to see all of us this offseason, and I’m honestly looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to another year under Karl and his development and his system.”
For Smesko, who now has the two best seasons in Dream history under his belt, the loss was disappointing, but he also made sure to give credit where credit was due.
“Obviously Gabby took it to another level, and she was getting to her spots, and she was getting downhill to her strong hand, things that we were pretty good most of the series about eliminating,” Smesko said about the difference in Game 7, as the Valkyries players could be heard celebrating in the tunnel behind the press conference. “We congratulate Golden State for an incredible year, an incredible series here.
“From our end, for a series, we probably played the best defense you could play in a series without winning the series. So we’ve got to go back and figure out how we can make our offense more efficient and be in a situation where even when you go against a great defense, we can kind of dictate the shots that we want a little better than we did consistently in this series.”
It’s important to reiterate, again, that the Dream not only had the best seasons in franchise history over the last two years, but that they were an elite defensive team, having not only the Defensive Player of the Year on their team in Reese, but the three top steal-getters in the league with Howard, Canada, and Reese, respectively.
It was a team that made the WNBA Finals despite missing its starting center, Jones, for the majority of the season, which forced Reese to play out of position.
When Canada said they’d be back after last year’s exit, it was open to interpretation. But this year, after coming so close to winning it all, when she says they’ll be back, she doesn’t just mean in contention.
She means winning the whole thing.
“It’s very hard to get to the finals, but we understand what it takes to get here,” she said. “Now we have to realize, as we mature as players, we develop as players, we have to stay together as a unit throughout the whole season. We can’t let games go. We have to value possessions. We can’t take plays off. Those are the little things that come down to winning the finals.”
