The Chicago Sky’s season died a large number of deaths on its technique to one of many worst data within the WNBA for the second straight 12 months. The Sky’s season was successfully over when the entrance workplace botched the 2025 draft in spectacular trend, when it made 36-year-old level guard Courtney VanderSloot their huge free agent addition, once more when Vandersloot suffered a season-ending torn ACL in early June, and as soon as extra when Angel Reese obtained damage simply earlier than the All-Star break, resulting in a 1-9 stretch in her absence that noticed the crew lose by a mean of 21.7 factors per sport.
The Sky’s season has been over for a very long time, however go away it to Reese to seek out some intrigue in taking part in out the string. With 5 video games on the schedule, Reese spoke with Chicago Tribune ace reporter Julia Poe in regards to the Sky’s horrible, horrible, no good season, and a future that appears even bleaker. Reese supplied the honesty followers supposedly crave from athletes, and she or he informed no lies in dissecting the micro and macro issues dealing with the franchise.
“I’m not settling for a similar s−−− we did this 12 months,” Reese mentioned to the Tribune on the crew’s awful offseason. “We’ve got to get good gamers. We’ve got to get nice gamers. That’s a non-negotiable for me.
“I’m prepared and eager to play with one of the best. And nevertheless I will help to get one of the best right here, that’s what I’m going to do that offseason. So it’s going to be very, essential this offseason to verify we entice one of the best of one of the best as a result of we are able to’t accept what we now have this 12 months.”
Reese saved going. She mentioned “We are able to’t depend on Courtney to come back again on the age that she’s at,” when speaking about tips on how to repair the crew’s level guard issues for subsequent 12 months. She implored head coach Tyler Marsh to teach the crew tougher, and pointed to the Golden State Valkyries’ defensive depth and team-wide competence of their first 12 months as an enlargement membership to indicate {that a} extra aggressive current is feasible. She yearned for a significant free agent addition however mentioned “I don’t know what’s going to entice that,” nodding to the Sky’s standing as a small market stand-in regardless of being positioned within the nation’s third greatest market.
Reese’s phrases have predictably prompted an uproar. Annie Costabile of Entrance Workplace Sports activities (who was on the Sky beat final season) adopted by reporting teammates had been sad with Reese’s direct remarks. Honesty has a means of injuring some emotions, and Reese already apologized for her remarks following Wednesday night time’s blowout win over the Connecticut Solar for the Sky’s most lopsided victory of the season.
Affordable minds can argue about whether or not it is a “dangerous look” for Reese from a publicity standpoint. What can’t be debated is that Reese was spot-on in regards to the Sky’s dire outlook because of epic mismanagement from the entrance workplace and a broke boy possession group.
The Sky already needed to dig out of a gap when the crew employed Jeff Pagliocca as GM in Oct. 2023. Chicago was beforehand led by James Wade, who was the pinnacle coach and GM in the course of the crew’s legendary run to the 2021 WNBA championship run. As that crew suffered an unimaginable collapse within the semifinals the following season, the core broke up, and Wade made a short-sighted commerce for Marina Mabrey, sending out two first-round picks and swap rights on one other first-rounder, plus younger ahead Leonie Fiebich for a participant who has nonetheless by no means been a WNBA All-Star.
The prudent transfer for the Sky at that time would have been committing to a full-scale rebuild. Pagliocca went the opposite course and instantly began mortgaging the crew’s future with some rash trades that had been at all times doomed to fail.
Pagliocca didn’t get sufficient of a haul when he traded Kahleah Copper to Phoenix. He traded management of one other future first-round decide to maneuver up one spot within the draft order to take Reese in 2024, who the Minnesota Lynx might not have taken anyway. His 2025 draft choices had been a disaster-class that may function a case research for a way to not run a WNBA franchise for future generations of ladies’s basketball followers.
The Sky got here into the draft with the No. 3 decide. Pagliocca traded it to Washington for Ariel Atkins, and he included 2027 first-round swap rights for good measure. The Mystics drafted Notre Dame wing Sonia Citron, the precise sort of Swiss military knife on the perimeter the Sky roster wants so badly. Citron has been higher as a rookie than Atkins has been at any level in her profession. It was a transfer that by no means made any sense for a rebuilding crew, and the Sky will proceed to pay for it properly into the long run.
Pagliocca’s first draft decide in 2025, Slovenian ahead Ajša Sivka, might nonetheless be excellent, and is predicted to affix the crew subsequent season. His subsequent first-round draft decide, Hailey Van Lith, was a large whiff. Van Lith had advertising attraction after a buzzworthy school profession, however she was at all times too small and too shaky along with her deal with and jumper to have an actual professional future. The Sky have badly wanted level guard play this season after Vandersloot’s harm, and Van Lith hasn’t actually been in a position to play in any respect as she’s battled an ankle harm. Possibly Van Lith turns into a starting-caliber level guard within the years to come back, however her sport is so flawed that it doesn’t seem to be a probable consequence.
Pagliocca has put the Sky in place the place they would possibly surrender the first-pick within the 2026 WNBA to finest crew within the league, Minnesota. If the crew can’t land a marquee free agent this upcoming offseason, he dangers giving up the No. 1 decide once more in 2027 because of the swap with Washington. The WNBA presently makes use of two-year data to find out lottery odds, and that’s going to be excellent for the Mystics as homeowners of the Sky’s decide.
In fact, a horrible entrance workplace isn’t the Sky’s greatest drawback: possession is. Throughout a time when so many franchises are run by billionaires with ties to different skilled leagues, the Sky’s possession group simply can’t measure up. The crew presently practices at a north suburban park district. Their long-rumored non-public follow facility is lastly coming subsequent 12 months, however the crew didn’t get a handy location for it, settling for a spot out by Halfway Airport. There’s a world the place the Sky are an enormous market bully with a pleasant enviornment in a basketball-crazed world-class metropolis, however as a substitute they’re decidedly the league’s greatest have-not now that the Solar are about to alter arms.
Reese has a means of beginning a firestorm with something she says or does, and her feedback are one other instance of it. What’s been underplayed within the fallout is simply how proper she is: the Sky are horribly mismanaged and there’s nothing a participant of Reese’s appreciable expertise can do about it.
Anybody paying consideration knew the Sky had a horrible offseason. Buying and selling the rights to Citron and the 2027 decide for Atkins was a really terrible choice by Pagliocca that didn’t want the good thing about hindsight to be panned. Vandersloot appeared washed in New York and was by no means going to be the savior in Chicago even when she stayed wholesome. Sloot’s harm is a handy excuse for the entrance workplace to cowl their misplaced season, however counting on her within the first place to this extent was complete organizational malpractice.
Pagliocca is objectively horrible at his job. He’s led the Sky by taking shortcuts to nowhere that sacrifice any long-term upside from a number of years of tanking-level play. If the Sky have any requirements, he must be fired the day the season ends.
Blame Reese if you would like for not lifting the crew to larger heights. In actuality, she has no assist, and she or he’s nonetheless turned in a fairly good second season. Reese has improved her scoring effectivity from 46.4 % true capturing as a rookie to 53.7 % true capturing this 12 months. She’s raised her help fee from 9.6 % as a rookie to 21.5 % this 12 months. She’s one of the best rebounder within the league, and she or he performs arduous as hell on each possession. She nonetheless has some problem in her sport — she turns the ball over means an excessive amount of, has no capturing vary, and spotty final touch — however she has not less than solidified herself as a very good WNBA participant in her first two seasons, if maybe not a mega-star on par along with her stage of fame.
When Reese was damage, the Sky had been liable to lose to any respectable opponet by 40 factors. Together with her, the video games have been extra aggressive, and the crew is +5.8 factors per 100 possessions higher along with her on the ground. It’s straightforward to day dream about how properly Citron’s capturing (44 % from three as a rookie) and burgeoning on-ball sport would have match with Reese. As a substitute, Pagliocca tried to take a shortcut to mediocrity that by no means had any upside, and ended up with a basement-dweller crew anyway.
Reese’s greatest crime was timing. These feedback ought to have been made after the season was over, when she didn’t must look her teammates within the face anymore. The principle goal of Reese’s feedback was by no means supposed to be her teammates anyway: this was calling out Pagliocca and possession for driving this franchise into the bottom. Reese is setting a normal for her franchise that they should be higher in the event that they wish to hold her round.
Angel Reese won’t ever fly underneath the radar, however the downfall of the Chicago Sky has to some extent. It’s not Reese’s fault. Pagliocca’s transaction log for 5 minutes ought to be completely disqualifying for his future as a WNBA GM. Reese simply mentioned what anybody paying consideration already knew.
