Pearl: The WNBA Doesn’t Get to Claim to Be Against Politicization When That Is All It Has Ever Done | Don't @ Me w/ Dan Dakich
"There's been no professional organization, sports organization in America that's been more political than the WNBA. "
The WNBA has another award for Cheryl Reeve. This one comes from the people who run the teams, and that makes it worth examining what, exactly, they are celebrating.
The league announced Monday that the Minnesota Lynx head coach and president of basketball operations won Basketball Executive of the Year for the third time, tying the Atlanta Dream's Dan Padover for the most selections in the award's history.
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Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve, who has openly pushed for males to be included in women's sports, won the 2026 WNBA Executive of the Year award. (Star Tribune via Getty Images)
The announcement comes less than two weeks after the top-seeded Lynx were swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the eighth-seeded New York Liberty, who were subsequently swept in the semifinals by the Dream.
Reeve appeared on 13 ballots, ahead of Padover's 11 and Golden State's Ohemaa Nyanin's eight. Each of the WNBA's 15 teams had an executive on the voting panel, and voters couldn't select themselves.
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That's a substantial endorsement of Reeve from her peers and it also amounts to tacit approval of the way one of the league's most outspoken left-wing figures represents her franchise.
An executive helps establish what an organization stands for, and Reeve has made her politics a major part of that job. She consistently uses her WNBA platform to attack the motives of people who believe women's sports should be reserved for females.
Her colleagues have now chosen to celebrate her leadership. That deserves scrutiny beyond a list of successful transactions.
Dallas made Reeve's Olivia Miles decision awfully easy
The league's announcement highlighted Reeve's selection of Olivia Miles with the No. 2 pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft. Miles went on to become the unanimous Rookie of the Year and set the league's rookie scoring record with 790 points.
An excellent addition, obviously. But let's remember how Miles became available.
The Dallas Wings could have (and should have) taken Miles, but elected to draft Paige Bueckers' girlfriend, Azzi Fudd, with the No. 1 pick instead.
The Wings publicly praised Fudd's shooting. But pretending that their selection of Fudd was based entirely on her basketball skills is foolish.
The Dallas Wings used the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft to select Paige Bueckers and then used the No. 1 pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft to select Bueckers' girlfriend and former UConn teammate, Azzi Fudd. (The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)
Miles averaged 19.8 points, 6.0 assists and 4.7 rebounds as a rookie. Fudd averaged 13.1 points, 1.8 assists and 1.7 rebounds. Miles produced those numbers while playing slightly fewer minutes per game, shot better from the field and finished second in MVP voting.
Reeve should probably send the Wings a thank-you note.
In April 2024, the Chicago Sky moved from No. 8 to No. 7 and acquired the rights to Nikolina Milić. Minnesota received Sika Koné, a 2025 second-round pick and the right to swap first-round picks with Chicago in 2026, along with the No. 8 selection.
Chicago used No. 7 on Angel Reese. At the time of the deal, Minnesota was coming off a 19-21 season and Chicago an 18-22 season.
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In April 2025, Minnesota sent Chicago the No. 11 pick, which the Sky used on Hailey Van Lith, for Chicago's 2026 first-rounder outright. That deal canceled the earlier swap and allowed Minnesota to keep its own 2026 first-round pick, too.
Reeve deserves credit for those trades. Once Dallas passed on Miles, though, the choice at No. 2 was awfully easy.
Reeve also signed Natasha Howard, who started all 44 games and earned an All-Star starting spot. Minnesota finished 33-11 and earned the No. 1 playoff seed.
Dallas did Reeve an enormous favor, and the Lynx benefited.
Reeve's team couldn't win a playoff game
For all those advantages, what did the Lynx do in the playoffs?
Minnesota became the first No. 1 seed in WNBA history to be eliminated by a No. 8 seed, and New York did it in a sweep.
The Lynx had the unanimous Rookie of the Year (who also finished second in MVP voting). And while Napheesa Collier, one of the league’s best players, missed time during the regular season, she played in both playoff games.
Minnesota lost both of those games by 16 points, including a 91-75 defeat at home in Game 1.
Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve hasn't won a WNBA championship in nearly a decade. (Getty Images)
Reeve's four championships are part of her record. So is the fact that the most recent one came in 2017. In the nine seasons since, Minnesota has reached the Finals once, losing to New York in 2024.
During that same stretch, Reeve has collected three Coach of the Year awards and all three of her Executive of the Year awards.
Six individual awards. Zero championships.
If Reeve gets the credit for both building the roster and coaching it, she can answer for what that team did in the playoffs, too.
An executive sets the tone for the franchise
Reeve already won her fifth Coach of the Year award two weeks ago. With Monday's announcement, she became the first person to win Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year in the same season twice.
For me, evaluating an executive means evaluating leadership. If an executive repeatedly uses the team's platform to make political statements, those statements belong in the discussion of how she represents the organization.
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Reeve wore a "Trans Kids Belong" shirt on the sideline against the Indiana Fever shortly after Sophie Cunningham's comments about wanting to protect women's sports went public.
But she wasn't done.
After Minnesota's Sept. 24 regular-season finale, Reeve characterized the controversy involving male participation in women's sports as an attack on what she called the "transgender community."
"They don't want transgender people to exist," Reeve said.
That's an ugly accusation to make about people whose position is that girls and women deserve their own athletic category.
And it came from the person who both coaches the Lynx and oversees their basketball operations. Her public conduct carries the authority of both positions.
By honoring Reeve as the year's outstanding basketball executive, her peers are publicly holding up her leadership as an example. Her political conduct is part of that leadership.
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The same people entrusted with running women's basketball teams are applauding a leader who talks openly about allowing males to compete in women's sports and share their locker rooms.
That says a lot about what the WNBA's decision-makers will celebrate.
