June 22, 2025
Rhyne Howard’s game has grown — and so has her impact for the Atlanta Dream
Howard: 'I want to be on an All-WNBA team and WNBA All-Defensive team'
ATLANTA — When the horn buzzed for halftime of the Atlanta Dream’s sold-out clash against the Chicago Sky on June 13, Rhyne Howard jogged to the locker room. Her team trailed 39-38, and she had clawed her way to 8 points — all in the second quarter — on 2-for-8 shooting, including 1-for-7 from three, along with three free throws, five rebounds and two assists.
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The 25-year-old hadn’t had her best start, but it topped her performance from three days prior. Howard had registered a season-low 3 points on 1-for-8 shooting, five assists, five rebounds, two blocks and one steal in the Dream’s 77-58 win over the Indiana Fever.
But shortly before halftime against the Sky, Howard found a speck of rhythm. With another half to play and a chance for the Dream to win their second Commissioner’s Cup game, that was all the two-time All-Star needed to motivate herself.
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In the second half, the crowd inside Gateway Center Arena (GCA) soaked up a vintage “Rhyne Time” performance. Howard, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft, opened the third quarter with back-to-back threes, scoring 6 of the Dream’s first 9 points and setting the tone for what was to come.
Howard dropped 11 points in the frame and exploded for 17 more in the fourth quarter, including 8 in the first four minutes. She finished the game with a season-high 36 points on nine made threes.
“Rhyne is a one-of-a-kind player,” Dream forward Naz Hillmon told reporters postgame. “Her offensive game — when she’s hot, she’s hot.”
Howard’s nine threes were a franchise record, breaking the mark Renee Montgomery set in 2018. She added eight rebounds and four assists, climbing to fourth on the Dream’s all-time assists list and eclipsing Layshia Clarendon. Just like her 33-point eruption on May 30 against the Seattle Storm — when she led Atlanta back from a 17-point hole — Howard lit a spark in both the Dream and the standing-room-only crowd inside GCA.
When fans think of Howard, they generally picture video-game scoring outbursts, especially when she’s cooking defenses. But in 2025, her impact goes far beyond scoring. Howard has expanded her game, affecting nearly every area on the floor while leading the Dream’s culture on both ends.
Howard is averaging 16.9 points per game, which is slightly down from the previous two seasons. Yet she still sits among the league’s top 15 scorers this season, in part because of her career-high 80.4% free-throw shooting.
Beyond points, she currently has career highs in several per-game categories: minutes (36.2), field goal attempts (15.7), 3-pointers made (3.0) and attempted (10.2), rebounds (5.3), assists (5.2), and blocks (0.9). She’s not tallying a career high in steals per game, but she ranks in the league’s top 20 in the category, like she has every season of her career.
Early in the 2025 season, Howard moved from the wing to take command of the Dream’s offense while point guard Jordin Canada missed the first seven games with a right knee injury. On top of running the show offensively, Howard regularly draws the assignment of defending the opposing team’s top guard or wing, a testament to her growing impact on both ends of the floor.
“I want to be in the MVP conversation,” Howard told The Next at the Dream’s preseason media day. “I want to be on an All-WNBA team and WNBA All-Defensive team. I think the people around me are going to hold me to that standard.”
Dream assistant Brandi Poole believes Howard is worthy of All-Defensive team honors.
“People don’t realize that Rhyne is defending like crazy right now,” Poole told The Next on Tuesday. “She needs to be on an [All-Defensive] team. … She’s really been taking that very, very seriously.”
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Playing under first-year Dream coach Karl Smesko hasn’t slowed Howard. Instead, she’s thrived in the new system, juggling multiple roles with a renewed sense of freedom.
That confidence traces back to her offseason run with Team Vinyl in the inaugural season of the 3×3 league Unrivaled, where she played under coach and Naismith Hall of Famer Teresa Weatherspoon. Howard ranked fourth in scoring during the regular season, averaging 20.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.3 steals and 0.8 blocks per game.
She elevated her game further in the postseason, putting up 22.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.0 blocks per game to help Team Vinyl finish as the runner-up.
“I was able to maintain that aggressiveness and physicality because [Weatherspoon] let us play free in Unrivaled,” Howard said in the preseason. “Those are traits that you definitely need in the league.”
Combine Howard’s facilitation and defense while still seeking out scoring opportunities for herself, and she becomes even more of an exceptional player. Smesko even gave her the nickname “Rhyne or Die,” which illustrates her impact and their player-coach relationship.
“In Seattle, she was unbelievably good,” Smesko told reporters after the Dream’s win over Seattle. “… In particular, off the ball screen, [Howard] was just making good decision after good decision. … She’s capable of having these kinds of nights. It’s just a matter of her seeing her opportunities. … The more aggressive she gets looking for opportunities, it opens up a lot of things for everybody.
“[Defenders] start running at her, she uses her shot fake, then she can get downhill [to the basket]. Once they help, she can move it to somebody else or try to finish and a lot of times to get to the foul line.”
Hillmon agreed: “When she had the ball in her hands, she just made great reads. … That’s just a testament to who she is.”
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Atlanta is currently fourth in the WNBA standings with a 9-4 record. The last time the franchise won nine of its first 13 games was in 2014. And the two other times it happened, in 2010 and 2013, the season ended with a trip to the WNBA Finals.
To stay on that trajectory, Howard knows the Dream must sharpen their execution, sustain their defensive intensity, move the ball with authority and limit turnovers. That formula becomes even more critical against elite competition, like on Tuesday night at Barclays Center, when the Dream relinquished a 17-point second-half lead in an 86–81 loss to the defending champion New York Liberty.
“I feel like we gave this one away,” Howard told reporters postgame. “… We stopped doing what was working. We stopped doing those little things that got us [the] lead. … We have to realize that we can’t let off of anybody in this league, especially the defending champs. I think we’ll take a lot from this [loss]. … I think that this will be huge for us in the upcoming games.”
Howard came close to a double-double on Tuesday, finishing with 13 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, three steals and three blocks. But for her, it’s not just about her points. It’s about how she and the Dream respond in games like that and grow from them. That’s what will make a difference in Atlanta’s ultimate goals this season.
The Next’s Howard Megdal contributed reporting for this story.
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Written by Wilton Jackson
Wilton Jackson II covers the Atlanta Dream and the SEC for The Next. A native of Jackson, Miss., Wilton previously worked for Sports Illustrated along with other media outlets. He also freelances for different media entities as well. He attended the University of Southern Mississippi, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in multimedia journalism (broadcast) before earning a Master's degree in mass communication from LSU and a second Master's degree in sport management from Jackson State University.
