This was when it all hit home. All of it. The moment, the season, her career.
Thus far.
While Sydney Taylor dripped in the water her teammates had just doused on her once she entered the locker room after draining the three-pointer that gave the Sky a must-win victory against the defending champion Aces, coach Tyler Marsh stood in front of his team and let open.
‘‘We’ve been working our ass off all year, man. All year for a win like this. The fight and the faith that we got, like, Syd, I mean . . . ’’
There was no need to say any more. Minutes later, he tossed Taylor the game ball and bestowed the Flavor Flav plastic gold Sky logo-ed lei around her neck. Anointed.
There’s difference between an opportunity and a canvas. In this fairy-tale odyssey of Taylor’s basketball life, this most recent chapter should not be misunderstood as the WNBA or the Sky giving her an opportunity. It doesn’t work that way when it comes to her.
Opportunities are risks. She’s so far from removed from that.
This is about a team (and a league) being smart enough to realize when all a great artist needs is a large piece of canvas where she can go to work. Leave her alone. Let her be her. And soon after, the world will notice. Taylor has become both case and point.
Here she comes to save the day. Save the team. Save the season. Save the future. She came as a mystery. Ground zero. Becoming the feel-good story to erase those abdominal-wrenching losses, the organizational drama, the onslaught of injuries (of which she recently became a victim of with a minor groin injury), etc. The breath of fresh air the Sky organization and the Chicago basketball culture desperately needed.
Undrafted in 2024. Struggle, real. Got here and into the ‘‘W’’ on a signed training-camp contract in April. A contract that got her out of Turkey. Before there, she was hooping in Poland and Lithuania.
Maybe it’s the ‘‘no expectations’’ she stepped in the door with that has allowed her to flow and flourish with a sense of freedom the city hasn’t seen in a Sky uni since Kahleah Copper left. Maybe it’s the ‘‘no expectations’’ we put on her — which we’ve seemed to place the opposite on everyone else who has signed or been drafted to hoop here — that opened the door for her moment to arrive.
Her herstoric run since she slid Sky No. 12 on, so unexpected. Five games with 25 or more points so far. Giving herself her own ‘‘welcome to the W’’ moment. Evidenced by dropping 27 points in only 23 minutes in just her fifth career game in the league earlier this season. Two months later, she’s the WNBA’s player of the month. Ms. Hotter Than July.
‘‘She’s a hooper,’’ former WNBA game analyst and ‘‘Sportz Unplugged’’ podcast co-host Steve Bardo said, emphasizing the hooper part in every aspect and how surprised he is that a player of her ability went unnoticed and unselected before she arrived here. ‘‘When I first saw Sydney play, her movement efficiency jumped off the screen. She’s a special player.’’
Sarah Spain, she of the ‘‘Good Game With Sarah Spain’’ podcast and the content director of iHeart Women’s Sports, went further: ‘‘What [Sydney] represents is hope for a team and a fan base that needs it right now. So to have a surprise acquisition, someone who didn’t come with major expectations, that excites and wins and plays hard and does amazing things every night feels like a little bit of a gift.’’
There’s nothing ‘‘rookie’’ about her. Emerged as the Sky’s Option 1. Their PCA, CW’s 1 and 2, their Murakami. The Sky didn’t need a shero; better they got a show. Not ‘‘The Show’’ — that name was doled out to the ‘‘other’’ rook, Olivia Miles — but a show this city can’t afford to miss or ignore. One that we can only hope and pray doesn’t end anytime soon or doesn’t leave like so many of the other shows before her.
Sydney Taylor didn’t intentionally come here to be the Sky’s savior, but dammit if she’s didn’t take the cape. ‘‘Sydney Taylor’s Loud All-Rookie Push’’ of the WNBA’s ‘‘Five Things I Like: Week 10’’ article said as much: ‘‘The Sky have been desperately missing a shooter and driver of her caliber, and if they don’t emphasize her role in this offense, they’re looking at another lost season.’’
Lost but now no longer unfound.
‘‘Just because I wasn’t picked doesn’t mean I’m not chosen,’’ Ryan Clark’s T-shirt this week spoke. Read between those lines and know what Taylor has been and continues doing is far beyond just a player being undrafted.
Great artists, again, don’t accept opportunities; they create their own. And once a canvas is placed in front of them . . . masterpieces. Way too often in this game we call sports, the word ‘‘fate’’ is applied to . . . whatever. Overused and rarely applicable. But for Sydney Taylor’s moment in this country, in this city and for this team, fate couldn’t be more on-point than her crossing halfcourt with the ball leaving her fingers.
Or in a locker room being surrounded by teammates, holding down an organization, baptized in water with an oversized, fly faux gold cable link dripping from her neck.