Mark Skylar Diggins down as a “we’ll see” for 2027.
After a rocky first season in Chicago for the veteran point guard — one that is ending early, with the Sky announcing she will miss the remainder of the season to continue rehabbing her knee — Diggins left her intentions for next year open to interpretation.
On paper, she still believes the Sky have a playoff roster. If not for the injuries and the team’s struggles in close games, she suggested, their preseason vision might have borne out.
But when asked about her future with the Sky, her comments were difficult to parse.
“The decision that I made and that we made as far as … shutting it down for this season has nothing to do with next year, in my opinion,” she said.
“We’ll just have to see how this offseason goes. But we’ve never had any talks with the organization about trades or wanting a trade or anything like that during this process.”
She continued: “Whatever happens in this free agency — or not free agency — in this next year and whatever goings-on, I haven’t expressed any desire to not talk about me in a Chicago Sky jersey next year.”
Very well then!
Once upon a time, Diggins was the Sky’s splashiest free-agent acquisition — if a curious one, given that they already had another future Hall of Fame point guard in Courtney Vandersloot.
On Tuesday, she said the decision to shut her down this season was made to protect her health and future with the organization.
But speaking to reporters for 20 minutes in an early exit interview, Diggins never offered what you hope for from a star setting: a resounding vote of confidence in the franchise’s direction.
She reiterated that her biggest frustration this season was the lack of a practice facility. The Sky had promised theirs would be ready by the start of the season but instead bounced among local college gyms. Diggins said that limited her recovery from knee surgery she underwent in October.
It also didn’t sound as though she had gained much confidence in head coach Tyler Marsh.
Marsh benched Diggins in early July, prompting a social media post in which she questioned the decision. She later questioned his end-of-game management in an interview with the Sun-Times.
When asked Tuesday whether Marsh was the right person to lead the organization into the future, she called it a “great question” that she would love to reflect on.
There’s good reason for Diggins to be ambivalent about Marsh. Though he improved significantly in his second season, the team still underperformed and repeatedly faltered in close games.
But there’s reason for the organization to be ambivalent about Diggins, too.
She was the Sky’s leading scorer in 19 games, but her finishing at the rim declined significantly, especially in clutch situations — the same moments that so often doomed the team.
Maybe the knee injury explains it. Diggins said she did not feel like herself this season and was limited by her health from the get-go. But perhaps it reflected a genuine decline in her play or a fundamental lack of fit.
Both sides now need to spend the offseason reflecting on whether their shared vision still makes sense.
Do the Sky really want to run back an experiment built around multiple accomplished veteran point guards and an inexperienced coach? Does Diggins?
These are questions everyone involved might have considered more carefully last winter.
We’ll see whether they reflect more thoroughly this time around.