Diamond DeShields’ homecoming with the Sky comes with a sweet sense of ‘relief’

Over the last three months, Diamond DeShields has felt a resounding sense of relief as it pertains to basketball.

Relief that she’s healthy and back home.

Of course, DeShields is from the Atlanta area, but she has called Chicago home since being drafted by the Sky with the No. 3 overall pick in 2018. She still called it home when the game took her to Phoenix and then Dallas.

Her return to Chicago, however, is under vastly different circumstances than when she left in a trade in 2022. She’ll be the first one to say that this year, she’s just grateful for an opportunity to return to the court — healthy.

In the same breath, however, DeShields exudes the confidence and competitiveness that helped make her an All-Star and WNBA champion.

“It feels like rookie year all over again,” DeShields said, “like I just got drafted.”

“I didn’t play basketball at all last season. So I’ve had this massive break from the game.”

A lot preceded DeShields’ most recent absence from basketball in 2023.

In 2022, months after helping the Sky win their first and only WNBA title, DeShields was moved to the Mercury in a three-team sign-and-trade executed by former coach and general manager James Wade. In 2023, DeShields was swapped to the Wings, this time in a four-team deal that once again included Wade and the Sky.

The same trade brought guard Marina Mabrey to Chicago.

However, before the season even began, DeShields experienced cartilage issues in her knee that led to doctors advising her not to play that year. Initially, surgery was recommended, but after doing her due diligence, DeShields was able to find a less invasive solution.

“Because I was in such a new environment in Dallas, I really wanted to be around people who were familiar with my entire health history,” DeShields said. “So I moved back home to Atlanta.”

DeShields worked with a team of professionals she has a long history with. Her speed and agility coach is the same one she has had since her freshman year of high school. She worked with the same strength coach she has for the last couple of seasons and the same physical therapist since college.

This was not the first time DeShields was sidelined with a significant injury. Three years before, her career trajectory was altered forever when she took contact on a routine play overseas and was left with an odd level of pain. An MRI exam revealed a tumor on her spinal cord that could have left her paralyzed.

“You can take really good guesses as to what type of tumor it is and what else is going on around it,” said Ann Crosby, the Sky’s executive in charge of strength and conditioning. “Until you actually get in there, you just don’t know. After the surgery, knowing the amount of trauma to remove this tumor — it was scary.”

Crosby, who has been with the Sky since the team’s inaugural season, describes DeShields as one of the most inwardly competitive athletes she knows. So Crosby knew she wouldn’t need to motivate her to take new steps when it came to her recovery.

Instead, Crosby had to remind DeShields to be patient.

“At some point, we’re going to get back there,” Crosby would tell DeShields. “It just might look different than what you are imagining.”

Twenty-one months after having surgery, DeShields stood under championship confetti at Wintrust Arena.

It looked different than she had imagined when she was drafted in 2018 as a player pegged to lead the franchise to its first title. But DeShields got there.

Now, 30 months after celebrating the Sky’s title, DeShields is tasked with being a building block for the next one.

“I’m past the point of just wanting to get back on the court,” DeShields said. “I’m to the point of wanting to make an impact and help lead a team to a championship.”

DeShields no longer is the show-stopping rookie. She’s an experienced veteran entering her seventh year in the WNBA.

First-year coach Teresa Weatherspoon is tasked with rerouting the ship back to title contention.

“I believe [the Sky’s hiring Weatherspoon] was a good move even before Chicago and I were having conversations about me coming back,” DeShields said. “When it started to look like there was a possibility of me coming back, she and I had a conversation. [How we] spoke about my return left me feeling good about the potential pairing of the two of us.”

Aside from DeShields, who signed a one-year, $100,000 contract, guard Dana Evans is the only remaining player from the franchise’s title season.

Weatherspoon essentially has a blank page to paint with her strategies and tactics. Veterans such as Elizabeth Williams and Brianna Turner and young stars such as Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese will serve as her paintbrushes.

What the Sky are building feels new to many. But for DeShields, it feels familiar, like finding a once-lost article of clothing and slipping it on to find it still fits — perfectly.

“I get to come to a place that on the outside looks new because there’s so many new faces,” DeShields said. “But to me, being in Chicago is my home.”