Angel Reese is leading Caitlin Clark in the only thing that matters: Winning rings

Angel Reese was working her last college handshake line when she stopped briefly to whisper something in Caitlin Clark's right ear.

"Keep elevating the game and go win it," Reese told her rival after Iowa beat the defending champ, Louisiana State, in the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight.

Clark did not win it in 2024, falling to South Carolina in the final, one year after falling to LSU in the final. To punctuate that Tigers triumph, Reese famously taunted her Iowa counterpart by mimicking John Cena's "You can't see me" gesture — Clark did it less conspicuously against Louisville a week earlier — and by pointing to her soon-to-be-sparkling ring finger.

Whatever you thought of Reese's on-court celebration, this much is true:

In big-time college and professional sports, the ring is the thing. You either win one or you don't.

Clark has made it clear where winning a title stands among her priorities with the Indiana Fever. "That's my main goal," she said in her recent season wrap of a news conference. Clark added that she plans to have a voice in the Fever's offseason moves, and that she will weigh her eligibility for a big raise under the EPIC (exceptional performance on initial contract) extension against the team's needs while building a contender under the salary cap.

"I just think for myself," Clark said, "it's more a decision of how we can best construct a roster and what's going to be best for our team to help us win championships."

Clark knows how the superstar game is played. She knows that even in a team sport, first-round playoff losses are permanently attached to a franchise player's legacy … unless there are ring ceremonies to come.

And in that context, Reese has a chance to take a commanding lead in the only race with Clark that really matters. Starting Saturday, her Atlanta Dream face the Golden State Valkyries in the WNBA Finals. If the Dream prevail, Reese will have a pro ring to go with her college ring — along with the FIBA World Cup gold medal she won with Clark in September.

That's a big deal, too, at a time when WNBA players feel that so much in their universe is out of their control. Most unfortunately, they can't control the hateful social media messages sent their way. They can't control the TV ratings and attendance figures that tilt heavily toward one special third-year guard over more established and decorated veterans (through no fault of Clark's).

They can't control who league marketing experts and Madison Avenue executives choose as the face of the sport and the centerpiece of a clever State Farm ad campaign (again, through no fault of Clark's).

But they can control who wins and loses between the lines, and that will never change. Clark's Fever were swept by the Connecticut Sun in two first-round games in 2024 and were eliminated by A'ja Wilson, now a five-time MVP, and her Las Vegas Aces in three first-round games this year. In between, an injured Clark missed Indiana's first-round victory over Atlanta and five-game loss to Las Vegas in the semis in 2025.

Reese was liberated from a dire situation in Chicago — the Sky were 23-61 in her first two WNBA seasons — and gifted an ideal alternative in Atlanta. With the Dream, she led the league in rebounding for a third straight year, contributing to a 30-14 regular season that gave way to a five-game playoff winning streak and a spot in the finals. In the last two games of the Dream's three-game sweep of the New York Liberty, Reese delivered a combined 45 points, 16 rebounds and four blocks.

After that series, Dream coach Karl Smesko spoke of his plan to make a deep playoff run. "Then we added the perfect piece to really bring that plan to life," he said. "And Angel has been everything we could have hoped for."

Reese is very much her own person, her own force of talent and will, and it's fair to ask why her accomplishments need to be measured against Clark's in the first place. In a 2024 CNBC interview made infamous by her failure to appropriately respond to the racism and homophobia that players face online, now-outgoing commissioner Cathy Engelbert called the arrival of Clark and Reese "a little of that Bird-Magic moment if you recall from 1979, when those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one White, one Black."

Larry Bird and Magic Johnson hated that race was an everyday part of their shared NBA journey, but they acknowledged it as fact. Not that race is at all a necessary component of an intense rivalry shaped by sweeping differences in style, appearance, personality and approach. Ali-Frazier. Palmer-Nicklaus. Evert-Navratilova. Russell-Chamberlain. And on and on.

But however they are defined, rivalries are essential for box-office appeal. The 1979 NCAA final between Magic's Michigan State and Bird's Indiana State put the madness in March before the blood feud between Magic's Los Angeles Lakers and Bird's Boston Celtics helped transform the NBA from a second-rate circuit into a global juggernaut.

Magic and Bird were admittedly jealous of each other, at least until they shot a Converse commercial in 1985 in Bird's hometown, French Lick, Ind., and ate lunch at the Bird home (Bird's mother told Johnson he was her favorite player) and realized they had so much in common. In a world without social media, they could become good friends off the court while remaining bitter enemies on it, a fact that inspired David Letterman to ask Bird this question while both men were on his late-night show in 2012:

"Do you now in your heart believe you're the better player?"

"Actually," Bird replied, "I've always said that I go by success and he's won more championships. So I give him the nod."

Including the NCAA clash, Johnson had Bird by a ring count of 6-3, including 3-1 head-to-head. Hey, it's the only way legends know how to keep score at home.

Let's face it, if Clark and Reese ever meet with a WNBA championship on the line, it will be a fever dream of a Fever-Dream spectacle. Talk about a show; those TV ratings might even make the NFL sweat. That Bird-Magic moment Engelbert referenced would be at hand.

It's good news that, from the outside looking in, Clark and Reese appear headed toward the kind of long-term kinship that Magic and Bird enjoy today, a relationship that will help Team USA in future international events. At the World Cup in Berlin, Clark shot down a reporter who brought up Reese and asked if they were "friends now," suggesting they weren't friends before.

After their 2024 Elite Eight matchup won by Clark, the two stars encouraged each other to keep chasing greatness in their quick handshake exchange. Now Reese stands four victories away from catching it on a higher level.

They are both too skilled and too competitive not to win multiple WNBA titles before their careers are done. But just in case, Angel Reese has a golden opportunity here to get out in front and try to stay there for keeps.

Atlanta Dream, Indiana Fever, WNBA, Opinion