Edward Anthony didn’t just “shoot his shot” at Angel Reese, he fired it in full view of the world, with four kids from four different women already in his rearview and a messy child support saga still trending on gossip pages.

It all started after Angel Reese’s show-stopping appearance on the Victoria’s Secret runway, a moment that had the internet in meltdown, with men openly thirsting, women hyping her confidence, and brands quietly calculating just how valuable her image has become.

Edward, watching like everyone else, apparently decided subtlety was overrated, going on livestream to admit he “didn’t realize she was that thick and built,” then telling her to “check your DMs, for real,” as if the whole world wasn’t listening.

His comment was meant to sound playful, but context is a cruel thing, because this isn’t a single, childless star flirting, this is a man already tied into four different co-parenting arrangements before he even angles for a shot at Bayou Barbie.

Fans immediately split into camps, with some calling it harmless admiration and joking that every man in the league was probably thinking the same thing, while others called it disrespectful, reckless, and a walking billboard for everything wrong with modern dating.

Even one of his fellow NBA veterans reportedly joked privately that Edward was “planning family rosters instead of championship rosters,” a line that leaked online and quickly became the go-to meme for people tired of seeing athletes treat fatherhood like a footnote.

The drama only escalated when details of one of his child support cases resurfaced, including reports that an ex-partner had received a lump sum of $1,080,000, calculated to cover eighteen years’ worth of contributions in a single upfront payment.

According to those reports, Edward agreed to the lump sum because he was furious about a pregnancy he never wanted, preferring to “pay and be done” rather than live in constant fear of future court battles every time a new contract bumped his salary.

The twist came from the woman herself, who told reporters she felt the ruling was “unfair,” arguing that if his income skyrockets with endorsements and new deals, she has no way to go back and demand more for the child’s future needs.

In a now-viral quote, she allegedly said, “I already used $100,000. What if it runs out before eighteen years?” framing herself as a poor woman trapped by a judge’s decision that locked her out of future adjustments, regardless of his financial growth.

She went further, saying, “This is injustice to a poor woman like me. I feel betrayed,” sparking a fierce debate about whether lump-sum child support protects the payer, the child, or neither, especially when the money management isn’t exactly handled by professionals.

Meanwhile, critics pushed back hard, asking why someone could burn through six figures that fast and then blame the court instead of budgeting, investing, or prioritizing the child’s long-term stability over immediate lifestyle upgrades and short-term spending.

Into that storm walks Angel Reese, not asking for any of this, but suddenly becoming the next potential chapter in a man’s already chaotic personal timeline, purely because he decided to turn a private DM fantasy into a public spectacle.

For her fans, the calculation is simple, Angel Reese is a rising WNBA and cultural powerhouse, building a brand, a legacy, and possibly an empire, and the last thing she needs is to be dragged into someone else’s child support drama.

They argue that men like Edward see successful women as trophies to be added to the highlight reel, not as human beings with their own standards, boundaries, and right to stay far, far away from a situation that looks like an emotional minefield.

Others take a more cynical view, suggesting that this is exactly how the modern attention economy works, that Edward knows attaching his name to Angel’s skyrockets his relevance, even if she ignores him, because the story itself becomes content.

The more people post “Edward shooting his shot at Angel Reese with four baby mamas already,” the more his name circulates, and the more his brand, endorsements, and media value quietly grow, regardless of whether Reese actually responds or rejects him.

There’s also a deeper gendered double standard on display, because a male athlete with multiple kids by multiple women still gets called “reckless,” “messy,” or “playboy,” while a woman in the same position would be absolutely annihilated by headlines and comment sections.

Angel Reese, by contrast, is grinding on the court, sitting front row at shows, walking the runway, and catching strays from a narrative she never volunteered for just because a man with a messy past decided to speak her name into a microphone.

Critics of Edward call it the ultimate red flag, that a man still unsettled with the mothers of his existing children is out here publicly shopping for a new storyline instead of quietly focusing on parenting, healing, and staying out of the courtroom.

Defenders counter that having children with multiple women does not automatically disqualify someone from finding love or pursuing a new relationship, and that internet moralists conveniently forget how messy real life can be for non-famous people too.

Still, even those defenders struggle to justify turning that pursuit into a spectacle, because there is a difference between respectfully sliding into someone’s DMs and practically announcing, “I know my history is chaos, but come be my next headline.”

Angel’s supporters warn that this entire setup is dangerous, not because she will actually fall for him, but because people will start speculating, shipping, or slandering her whether she responds or not, as if she invited the circus into her life.

The story also raises uncomfortable questions about money, gender expectations, and responsibility, especially when one mother admits she’s already spent a large chunk of a million-dollar lump sum and is worried about the rest running out.

Some see her as irresponsible, proof that cash without structure can vanish quickly, while others see her as a cautionary tale about judges and systems that hand out one-time payments without financial guidance or protections for long-term stability.

Meanwhile, Edward’s choice to chase Angel Reese, publicly, despite unresolved narratives and backlash, says something loud about ego, entitlement, or maybe just pure delusion, the belief that status and charm will always outweigh history in the court of public opinion.

For Angel Reese, the best move might be silence, a refusal to give the story any extra oxygen, letting people argue, meme, and speculate without her blessing, while she stays focused on building the kind of life where she does the choosing, not the other way around.

But for everyone watching from the outside, the question lingers in the comments, would you ever entertain a man with that much personal baggage, that many overlapping stories, and that little sense of discretion about his own romantic impulses.

Because if Edward Anthony is willing to treat her name like content while the ink is still drying on his child support settlements, maybe the real story isn’t about Angel Reese’s beauty — it’s about how little some men fear consequences when shooting their shot.