Sky forward Angel Reese was thrilled about her younger brother, Julian, inking a deal with the Lakers following the 2025 NBA Draft.
“OPPORTUNITY,” Reese wrote in an X post Friday. “COME ON JU.”
Julian Reese, whose four-year collegiate career with Maryland culminated in a Sweet 16 run during March Madness, will participate in the NBA Summer League games, which will give him the chance to earn either a two-way contract or an invite to training camp, according to a Maryland press release.
Reese’s mother, Angel, also commented on the signing, sharing a graphic about the deal and writing, “#NBASummerLeague” in a post on X.
Last season, Reese became just the second Terrapins player in program history to reach 1,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds, and he averaged 13.3 and 9.0 per game, respectively, for his senior season.
He opted to stay at Maryland all four years — through a coaching change that followed his freshman year, through the struggles that followed two years later — and made the NCAA Tournament once head coach Kevin Willard took over for the 2022-23 campaign.
“That was really the biggest thing, he wanted to get his degree from the University of Maryland because he’s a Maryland kid,” Willard said in March, according to Sports Illustrated. “So it meant that much. He wanted to get back to the NCAA tournament, and he felt that this was the best place to do it. And third, he was loyal. He’s like, ‘Ya know, I’ve been here, you’ve done right by me, I know you’re going to continue to do right by me.’ When you transfer, you never know what’s going to happen. He knew that he had a home and that he had a guy who was going to take care of him.”
He became a regular piece of Maryland’s starting lineup during the 2022-23 campaign, and the Baltimore native helped spark wins over Grand Canyon and Colorado State to reach the Sweet 16 before falling to Florida, who went on to win the national championship.
So now, the 6-foot-9 forward will join a group of Lakers signings following the draft that also includes Villanova’s Eric Dixon, North Carolina’s R.J. Davis and Saint Mary’s Augustus Marčiulionis, according to Lake Show Life.
Reese went to the same Saint Frances Academy for high school as his sister, who then went on to play for Maryland and LSU before becoming the No. 7 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Angel Reese has averaged 11.3 points and 11.9 rebounds in her second season for the Sky, though Chicago has struggled again to start the year and opened with just a 4-11 record entering Sunday’s game against the Sparks.