The question was simple. The answer broke Rhyne Howard.

On Tuesday, the Atlanta Dream held their final practice at home before flying to San Francisco for Games 1 and 2 of the WNBA Finals, and Howard was asked when it actually hit her that she was going to the championship series. The 2022 Rookie of the Year started to answer, her voice trailed off, and she had to stop to gather herself. She wiped her eyes before she could finish.

“We just worked so hard to get here, and it’s been a rough five years,” Howard said. “So to finally be here, it’s not something we just let go of easily.”

Five years. That is how long Howard has been in Atlanta, and until this season, she had never gotten past the first round of the playoffs in three tries. Now she is one of the engines of a team playing in the Finals for the first time since 2013 — and the emotion of that is clearly not something she can just wave away.

The numbers show how much she has carried. Howard led the league in steals at 2.3 per game this season, was named to the All-Defensive second team in 2025, and is a four-time All-Star. In five playoff games this fall, she is averaging 19.2 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.2 steals.

She was not alone in feeling the weight of the build. Back in April, forward Naz Hillmon talked about how the group arrived when the program was gutted — “we brought in the drywall,” she said — and set out to build something bigger, a project that accelerated with the addition of Angel Reese.

That work is done. The Dream are 5-0 in these playoffs, the last unbeaten team standing, and they open the Finals on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 3:30 p.m. ET at Chase Center. For Howard, the tears were just the moment catching up with the work.

Sources: USA Today (Oct 14, 2026). Stats as reported for the 2026 playoffs.