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The Atlanta Dream are in the middle of one of the WNBA’s biggest one-year turnarounds. After hiring head coach Karl Smesko and adding several veteran pieces, the Dream are 10 games above .500 with two weeks left in the season. They finished 10 games below .500 last year.
But as one of the WNBA’s independent teams—and one that has not tasted a championship in franchise history—the Dream still face several challenges. One of those manifested on Wednesday in the team’s loss to the Las Vegas Aces, who won back-to-back WNBA titles in 2022 and 2023.
The Aces, who passed the Dream to claim the No. 2 spot in the standings, used a 21–6 third-quarter run to take the road win. In the fourth quarter, Las Vegas star A’ja Wilson received “MVP” chants from the fans in the Gateway Center Arena in Atlanta.
Dream star Rhyne Howard was not happy with the reaction from her home fans, saying the Aces’ third-quarter surge was fueled by the Atlanta crowd’s support.
“This is a challenge. We rely on our fans, and when they pick and choose who they want to root for and come in and make it feel like an away game for us and a home game for the other team, it’s easy to go on a run like that,” Howard said.
The three-time All-Star alluded to how fans may be rooting for Wilson because she played college basketball at South Carolina, which is only a few hours away from Atlanta. However, Dream wing Allisha Gray, who is in the 2025 WNBA MVP conversation, also played for South Carolina and was Wilson’s teammate. Rookie Te-Hina Paopao is also a former Gamecock.
“You wanna go see Gamecocks? We have Gamecocks on our roster. The last game, we had MVP chants for one of our players. Don’t get here and switch up because of one player. Yes, we do make mistakes, but it’s easy to lose momentum when you have other people cheering against you,” said Howard, who was the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft.
The MVP chants are even more amplified considering the Dream’s arena has the smallest capacity among all WNBA home venues. Their arena fits fewer than 4,000 fans per game, though team president Morgan Shaw Parker told Front Office Sports in March that they are exploring a move to an arena that seats up to 14,000.
Atlanta—the league’s last expansion team before the Golden State Valkyries joined this year—is one of the few remaining WNBA teams whose ownership group is not tied to an NBA team.
