It looked like the play was dead. Sky center Kamilla Cardoso had surveyed the floor looking for an open teammate. But now she was without her dribble, smothered by reigning Defensive Player of the Year Alanna Smith, still well outside the paint.
Cardoso had a cheat code, though. When you can make strides as large as hers, the basket is never really that far away.
She ducked under Smith and stepped through for the layup, giving herself a perfect 6-6 from the field in the first half of the Sky’s home opener last Wednesday.
Her teammates rushed her at the next stop in play, their faces lit up with an “I told you you could do it” kind of joy.
“She was just really aggressive,” veteran center Elizabeth Williams said. “She’s able to dominate when she really turns it on. She’s continued that over the last few games, so it’s great to see.”
Added veteran guard Rachel Banham: “I just think she doesn’t realize how good she actually is and how good she can be. When you see glimpses of that, it’s really exciting. We’re like, ‘Girl, you could do this a lot more often.’ ”
Coming off three strong performances, Cardoso now enters a crucial stretch. Is this the same old Cardoso pattern — flashes of greatness followed by frustrating lulls? Or is she really going to, as Banham said, do it a lot more often?
With her rookie contract expiring in 2027, Cardoso is on the clock
Since being drafted No. 3 overall in the highly-anticipated 2024 draft, the Sky have been waiting on Cardoso. Not necessarily for her to arrive — she has arrived, in various emphatic declarations of talent. It’s more that everyone’s been waiting for her to decide to stick around.
The Sky have always envisioned Cardoso on a path to becoming one of the most dominant bigs to ever play the game.
Now, with her rookie contract expiring in 2027, the grace period is over. No more excuses for Cardoso, 25, who’s finally surrounded by a highly competitive roster and an offensive system tailored to maximize her strengths.
Which is why her start to the season was concerning. After a strong opening-night performance against the Fire in Portland, she shot a combined 5-for-16 over the next two games. When the Sky had a positive run, Cardoso was often on the bench, with Williams doing a better job of protecting the rim and stabilizing the offense.
Then, in Minnesota, something shifted. When star forward Rickea Jackson went down in the second quarter with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, Cardoso responded with renewed hunger: 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting, 12 rebounds, four assists and three blocks in a surprise win over the Lynx. She stopped floating. She locked in with more physical, active defense.
“I know a lot of people talk about my defense and say I’m not very good at it,” Cardoso told the Sun-Times. “So I took that personally, and I’m trying to get better.”
Over the next three games, she shot 19-for-28, bringing her season averages up to 14.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, two assists and 1.3 blocks per game. Fixes to her technique around the rim helped drive the turnaround. But the biggest change has been in how she sees time. She realized she has more of it than she once thought.
Time to survey the defense. Time to wait for the right moment to attack.
“Sometimes I tend to rush my shots,” Cardoso said. “I just need to take my time and try to give them a second move. I think sometimes I was turning right into [the defense]. I needed to start giving them a second move and try to step through.”
That patience also translated to her passing game.
“I’ve just got to stay calm and watch the floor and see where the double is coming from,” she said. “And find the open players.”
Small changes. But they made a world of difference — enough to turn a player who could have been on the trade block by midseason into the kind you stick on billboards for years to come.
That is, if she can keep it up.
Cardoso’s new habits signal a shift in mindset
But how do you know when you’ve broken out of a pattern and no longer have to fear it, no longer have to worry you’re still in the thick of it, even during obvious moments of growth?
There’s lingering evidence that Cardoso could be stuck. In her last outing against the Lynx on Saturday at Wintrust Arena, she poured in 17 points but still came up short on layups. Her defensive assignment, forward Natasha Howard, scored 22 points in the first half alone. Down the stretch, Sky coach Tyler Marsh again turned to Williams to get stops.
Marsh is honest: Cardoso hasn’t yet reached the level of play he envisions. But her coaches and teammates do see a shifting approach. She’s expecting more of herself. She’s been staying late for extra practice and film sessions. Williams is always excited to see Cardoso’s name pop up on her phone, texting her to set up shooting workouts.
Williams pointed to one payoff already: Although Cardoso still scores mostly with layups, she has started using a lefty hook, a move she learned from Williams, who thinks she’ll be unguardable once she perfects it.
Maybe the best way out of a pattern is to simply start new ones.
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