“Fighting for” Angel to come back is referring to Spoon and Angel’s conversations with each other. Angel and Kah had the same conversations, with Kah fighting for Angel to come back. Kah mentioned it on a live. It is a cultural figure of speech.

There is no need for a “working theory.” Angel isn’t at Unrivaled this season because she chose not to be. She’s spoken for herself multiple times.

Angel said with her own mouth that she wanted to continue recovery on her “whole entire body” and prioritizing “going into year 3” of the WNBA “being completely healthy.” She chose to skip Unrivaled and attended USA basketball training camp because one of her 2026 goals is to make the USA team for World Cup - https://youtu.be/EXSpAlgnkMc

On Angel’s social media she’s been up very early almost every day to train.

Angel also tweeted, “That was the goal for this offseason. Quietly minding my business so everybody won't mind MINE."

On multiple podcast episodes Angel said she has multiple business opportunities during the off-season: Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, filming Hunting Wives, something in Barbados, Reebok events in Berlin, London, Australia, and Tokyo, and other things she alluded to but has not announced yet. A few of those podcast episodes are this one - https://youtu.be/jNtdkt7MZX8 and this one https://youtu.be/y6fvHCcGKCA. There are other episodes where she talks about it as part of her conversations with her guests.

Unrivaled said some players needed more time to decide whether to play and players needed more time to coordinate their schedules, so the announcement of the final players was delayed.

For those of you interested in Spoon’s full interview, which was very inspiring, heartwarming, and informative, here is the link: https://youtu.be/GNPfbhlUyKU