Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese and guard Rhyne Howard have been two of the best players in the league this season. But neither one made the cut as a WNBA All-Star starter. Reese has become the fastest player in league history to reach 1,000 career rebounds, and Howards leads the WNBA in steals per game. However, none of these seemed enough.

WNBA analyst Trysta Krick weighed in on the snub, arguing the Dream got shorthanded by how the vote actually broke down.

“It really has to do with how they weight the fan vote versus the media vote versus the player vote,” she said on Yahoo Sports Daily. “The Atlanta Dream in general are being disrespected a little bit.”

That disrespect, as Krick sees it, comes down to the margins. Both Reese and Howard are putting up league-leading statistics in several categories. Reese is averaging 14.9 points and 11.8 rebounds (1st in the league), and 2.5 assists per game. Howard is putting up 18.9 points (1st in the team), 3.3 three-pointers (2nd in the league), and 2.5 steals (1st in the league) per game.

For Krick, one of the reasons Reese missed the starter spot was because Gabby Williams was categorized as a forward.

“The issue is that Gabby Williams was considered a forward,” Krick said. “To me, Gabby Williams has always been a guard hybrid, definitely a player that plays more on the perimeter, and she ends up becoming an All-Star starter and bumping out Angel Reese.”

That positional gray area hurt Reese specifically. For Howard, Krick pointed to something closer to raw voting math.

“Rhyne Howard also didn’t make the starter roster. She’s third in the league in win share. She’s averaging almost 20 a game..,”

“And she probably did that to herself,” Krick added, referring to an earlier incident which she explains right after.

“Because the funny story is that earlier preseason, one of the fans of hers posted a photo of Rhyne Howard’s media day. And Howard sort of lost her mind, called her out directly, said that she hates when people release her photos from media day before she can do it herself, even though it was publicly on Getty. It became a huge thing on social media, and the fans sort of turned against her.”

The gap between performance and voting outcome is the same pattern that shows up across the Dream’s whole roster this year. Howard finished second among guards in the player vote and fourth in media vote. Though both might be strong marks, but ninth with fans was enough to drop her to fifth overall, one spot outside the cutoff.

Reese’s numbers tell a similar story. She ranked sixth in the fan, media, and player votes alike, a rare level of agreement across three groups that usually disagree. Yet, she still finished seventh among frontcourt players, trailing Minnesota’s Natasha Howard by just 0.25 weighted points.

But for Reese, this omission comes as no surprise. In fact, she expected it.

“I expect to be disrespected,” Reese said earlier via ESPN.

That kind of margin is exactly why the frustration around Atlanta’s snub isn’t really about any one player being overlooked. It’s about how thin the gap was between starting and watching.

Atlanta Must Not Get Distracted

A 12-9 record masks the fact that the Dream are on a five-match losing streak. While they do have the roster depth to push for a deep run into the season, any more slip-ups at this moment can cost them a spot in the playoffs.

For a team built to win a championship, the scenario of not even making the playoffs would be a total disaster.

Atlanta’s next stretch includes Seattle, Portland, and the Los Angeles Sparks. All winnable games on paper, but exactly the kind Atlanta has struggled to close out recently. Turning that around starts with the same players who just watched the All-Star starter announcements without their names on it.