WASHINGTON D.C — There’s no sense in sugarcoating it. This season represented a worst-case scenario for the Sky, a cosmic repudiation of three years’ worth of offseason dealings. Their new face of the franchise, Rickea Jackson, acquired in a deal with the Sparks, tore her ACL four games into the season.
Their former face of the franchise, Angel Reese, traded to the Dream for late-round draft picks, solidified herself as a top-15 player in the league.
And Lynx rookie Olivia Miles, who the Sky could have drafted had they not traded up to get Reese, has surpassed everyone’s wildest expectations, looking like Lindsay Whalen and Maya Moore and Luka Doncic all rolled into one.
But wait, there’s more!
For all their troubles this season, their eleventh place finish, their fourth quarter collapses, there will be no consolation prize. The lottery pick that normally helps franchises to rebound — they owe that to the Mystics, the consequence of an impatient deal from 2024.
Accordingly, the Sky are heading into the offseason with some big questions.
Will they replace coach Tyler Marsh? How long does general manager Jeff Pagliocca have left? What are they going to do at the point guard position?
And, even more existentially: What is principal owner Michael Alter’s plan for getting the Sky to compete in a bigger, better WNBA?
Alter is now the league’s second-longest tenured owner, having founded the team in 2005. He’s had moments to brag about, including a championship in 2021. But in the last five years he has not responded swiftly and boldly enough to the league’s changing dynamics.
The WNBA has grown exponentially, both in the number of teams and the investment those teams make in infrastructure — read, practice facilities — and staff — read, front office.
That the Sky missed the first wave of teams building dedicated practice facilities, and that they’ve missed their own deadlines for the one under construction in Bedford Park, has been painfully obvious.
Less visible, but just as painful, is their lagging approach to building out their front office. It is still staffed by just one person: Pagliocca.
I wrote a couple weeks ago that Alter should put a math and strategy-minded team under him.
The Lynx are the obvious example for why; a sound projection in 2024 that the Sky would end up a lottery team ultimately netted them Miles. But my concern, at its core, extends beyond the size of the front office. It extends beyond the practice facility delays too.
Practice facilities and front offices have been progress points across the league in recent years, but the top teams will always be pushing the frontier. What’s the next growth area? The Sky need to be able to anticipate it and get out in front of it.
I wish I had a 12-step process for how to get there. I don’t. What I do have is the first step — a simple one Alter can take in the coming weeks — which is to publicly address the fans and own up to mistakes.
If he needs a little inspiration, he can look across town to see how the Bulls did it. That organization has also stagnated in recent years, but as a part of their front office rebuild, owner Michael Reinsdorf acknowledged that the organization has not done a great job of anticipating where the league is going. It’s a small admission, but it helps to build credibility and excitement around the team’s new direction.
Alter needs to do the same.
Regardless of what he decides about Marsh and Pagliocca’s futures, it’s time for him to come out and say: we’ve missed some things. And we don’t just have a plan for catching up, we’ve got a plan for being on the cutting edge.
That will require him to let go of the defensive posture that so many executives — especially Sky ones — use when speaking to the public.
Their communication around practice facility delays is just one example. Ownership said the facility would be ready ahead of this season, but it’s still not done. And as they’ve blown past two years’ worth of deadlines, they haven’t acknowledged a single mistake, maintaining that the delays are just due to weather or bad luck or a need to expand.
Being defensive has its roots in real dynamics. The Sky became the poster child online for a poorly-operated WNBA team, when organizations including the Sparks, Wings, Sun and others had many of the same issues.
Public conversation does lack nuance and isn’t always fair. But it can benefit from guidance. And if you can’t acknowledge your flaws, you can’t expect anyone to believe that you’re going to change.
WNBA fans now more than ever want to be informed and engaged. That’s what makes the women’s basketball boom so special, and it’s especially true in Chicago. These fans are locked in and loyal.
The scene at Wintrust Arena shows it. You would’ve thought that with Reese gone and the wins still few and far between, the place would be a ghost town. But fans have stuck with it — attendance is down less than 10% from 2025.
I couldn’t believe how many people showed up for the final home game earlier this week, a meaningless skirmish between the Sky and Tempo’s JV teams. The stadium was eighty-percent full, and when veteran guard Elizabeth Williams took the mic to thank them for their support, everyone was on their feet, applauding.
The fans really want this. They’re ready to get behind something sustainable.
Imagine what it would bring to the league to have one of its oldest franchises and biggest markets thriving and leading the way.
Acknowledging mistakes shouldn’t preclude Alter from being proud of meaningful progress this season. Beating the Aces and Valkyries at home, taking the Fever to overtime on the road — none of that happens by accident. They’ve assembled some real pieces in Sydney Taylor, Kamilla Cardoso and Gabriela Jaquez, not to mention the injured Jackson.
But he needs to be sober and humble about what’s left to prove. This young core still lacks the track-record of playoff-bound ones on the Mystics, Fever, and Wings — or even rebuilding teams like the Storm.
And even if they do prove themselves as playoff-level pillars: why should fans believe that they’ll commit to Chicago long-term?
Why should they believe that the front office will make the right moves around them?
A little humility from Alter would go a long way right now.
Maybe all this is giving him too much credit. Maybe his sincerity will mean nothing because he is simply not wealthy or sophisticated enough to finance the necessary investments to keep pace in a booming league. If that’s true, he should sell the team.
But since he was capable of scrapping together $60 million of financing for the practice facility, according to the team, I’m not so sure money is the only thing holding the Sky back.
I think humility and vulnerable communication are part of it too.
That’s the first step. If you’re reading this, Mr. Alter, it’s time to hop to it.