Sky fans: remember the one good part of the season, right around the All-Star break?
The team’s franchise player, Angel Reese, showed flashes of turning into an unstoppable playmaker. The heart of the locker room, Rachel Banham, valiantly stepped in to run the offense for a team that lacked a true point guard. And the team steadied themselves after a bad start, going .500 in the eight-game stretch leading up to the break.
Ah yes, that was sweet. If only it had lasted longer than a couple of weeks.
Instead, it has been another terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year for the Sky (10-34). A season removed from firing coach
Teresa Weatherspoon, this year resembled the old adage: What can go wrong will go wrong.
The first blow came seven games into the season, when point guard Courtney Vandersloot tore her ACL. That undid the offense. The Sky didn’t bring in many other guards who could reliably drive and dish, so traffic pretty much stopped moving without her.
The roster also was constructed such that being competitive relied on everyone staying healthy. But Reese and Ariel Atkins, the team’s two most dynamic players, missed a combined 24 games.
A bottom-ranked offense and an even worse defense followed.
As if things couldn’t get worse, the season’s final weeks revealed just how far apart the organization and its star really are. Reese started dropping hints of frustration after the All-Star break, and then she dropped a bomb in an interview with the Tribune.
She questioned everything from the roster, to the organization’s free-agent appeal, to the wisdom of building around a recovering Vandersloot.
The Sky suspended Reese for half a game, then listed her out with a back injury for the rest of the season. Silence from both Reese and the Powers That Be has fed a familiar anxiety among fans: is another star walking out the door? Maybe it’s too early for that.
In the meantime, one thing is abundantly clear: Reese has been challenging the organization’s self-image.
The organization believes its new $40 million practice facility — currently under construction in Bedford Park — will help make them a top-tier destination.
Reese said “we’ll see” if it would attract top players.
The organization believes this season was progress toward making the playoffs.
Reese said it was “hard to say” if it was.
The organization believes its culture outweighs the losing record — but what’s the value of a culture without buy-in from the face of the franchise?
Before Thursday’s game, head coach Tyler Marsh said he has “no reason to believe” that Reese’s commitment to the team has changed.
But the Sky won’t get very far if their pillar and the Powers That Be remain at odds. In the offseason, Reese and principal owner Michael Alter will either have to do a few trust falls — or work out a deal to go their separate ways.
One player whose trajectory ran opposite to the team’s was the other young pillar, Kamilla Cardoso. While the team’s fortune was zigging, Cardoso was zagging. Everything about her game — from her passing to her rebounding to her defense — took major leaps forward. Her teammates say she’s grown the most of anyone, now showing them the “real Kamilla.”
Her presence can give Sky fans some comfort. She’s under contract for two more seasons and the team can build around her. Vandersloot also appears intent on returning, saying in a TV interview last week that her age is “not a factor.”
Pretty much everything else is up in the air.
Besides Reese and Cardoso, only rookies Maddy Westbeld and Hailey Van Lith are signed for next year. That leaves the Sky with some big questions.
Will veterans Atkins, Banham and Elizabeth Williams double down on this project? With the league’s looming free-agent flood, will any big names come aboard?
Genuinely, It’s hard to say.
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