PHOENIX — She’s the one that got away.
Scratch that. She’s one of many stars who have gotten away from the Sky. But Kahleah Copper’s departure hurt badly. She grew into a franchise player in Chicago and stuck around even after the 2021 championship core broke up. Entering her prime, though, the four-time All-Star wanted more than the organization could offer.
Now she’s at the core of a rebuilt Mercury team making a Finals run few saw coming.
Eating popcorn before shootaround on Saturday in Las Vegas, Copper was asked how she’s changed since winning the 2021 Finals MVP. She exhaled deeply, as if the change defied words. One, though, came close.
“Leader,” she said.
Always competitive
In her second year in Phoenix, Copper’s teammates admire the same thing that her Sky teammates always did: her competitive edge. She’ll clap in your face after a steal, talk in your ear after a bucket. She’ll even go “Philly Kah” once in a while to remind you where she’s from.
But now, even on a Mercury team with all-time greats like DeWanna Boner and Alyssa Thomas, she’s a primary voice in the locker room too.
That voice became even more vital when she missed the first quarter of the season with an injury. Guard Sami Whitcomb, whose timely threes helped take down the Lynx in the semifinals, remembered Copper coaching her to be more aggressive — to take the kind of shots Copper would take if she were out there.
“It was important for all of us to hear her belief in us,” Whitcomb told the Sun-Times. “To see her level of engagement on the side was big for me.”
Though the Mercury’s “Big Three” of Copper, Thomas and Satou Sabally have dominated the playoffs, the beginning of the season belonged to the team’s hidden gems. Players like Kathryn Westbeld and Kitija Laksa had succeeded overseas but never gotten their chance in the W.
Copper was the perfect person to lead a team like that. Drafted No. 7 out of Rutgers, she didn’t get much playing time until her fifth season. She described the early part of her career as constantly having to “wait, wait, wait your turn.”
That experience gives her a relatability few stars have, and it shows in how she talks about her teammates.
“Don’t forget those players who held it down when I wasn’t playing, when [Alyssa Thomas] didn’t play,” Copper implored the media at Finals media day. “They put us in a position to be a four seed.”
‘Everything’s jumped up’
If Copper has trouble describing how much she’s changed since winning her first championship, the same could be said for the league itself. Some of the game’s top minds say they hardly recognize it from even two or three years ago.
“The flow, the scores, the amount of points players are scoring — everything’s jumped up,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said.
The 2024 Mercury leaned hard into new trends. First-year head coach Nate Tibbetts brought his NBA sensibilities with him, and within a month they were launching 30 threes a game. It didn’t lead to success right away — the Mercury were swept out of the first round last season — but Tibbetts’ belief in Copper made an impression.
She remembers their first meeting, when he told her she needed to shoot more threes.
“I don’t think my coaches had ever told me that,” Copper said. “I played in the middy, shot a couple threes, but that wasn’t really my role.”
Her first season in Phoenix, she attempted 220 threes — a big jump from the 85 she took the year the Sky won the title. She didn’t hesitate anymore, pulling up in transition or with defenders’ hands in her face.
“You said shoot it — aight, I’ll shoot it!” she laughed, describing her new mentality.
This season her 3-point percentage ranked fourth among high-volume three-point shooters, and in the Finals she’s shooting a blistering 47.1% from deep.
She’s refined other parts of her offense, too, like passing out of traffic when defenses collapse on her drives. But what she’s most proud of is what’s always defined her: her two-way ability.
“To be able to guard the best player and still put on an offensive show — that’s hard to find in the game today,” Bonner told the Sun-Times.
That’s where the league is catching up to Copper. Coaches now recognize that two-way guards — especially those with the athleticism to defend multiple positions — are at a premium.
Bonner says it’s no coincidence that the two best two-way guards in the league — Copper and the Aces’ Jackie Young — are facing each other in the Finals. Teams can’t reach the top without it.
Still figuring it out
So how have the Sky changed since Copper got away?
On one hand, they’re finally doing some of the things that might have convinced her to stay — investing in a practice facility, upgrading aspects of the player experience.
Stylistically, though, they’ve lagged. The year after Copper left, they averaged just 15 three-point attempts per game. Even after a coaching change meant to modernize the offense, they stayed near the bottom in scoring, and their defense slipped further.
As the Sky figure out how to maximize their 2024 draft picks, Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso, one thing is clear: they’ll need a star guard — and a leader — like Copper.
“I would love for Kah to come back to Chicago,” Reese said during the regular season.
Who wouldn’t? But in Phoenix, Copper found what she’d been looking for — a contender on the cutting edge, setting the league standard.
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