With the litany of generational talents that were selected in the 2024 WNBA Draft, many a team found what theoretically would be franchise cornerstones for the next 15 or so years.
Or – that is ideally how such a draft would play out.
Look at the Indiana Fever. It has its core of Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark with Kelsey Mitchell providing a worthwhile veteran presence. Look at the Los Angeles Sparks and what they accomplished by selecting both Rickea Jackson and Cameron Brink.
Then – there is the Chicago Sky.
The Sky had a lottery pick in that draft – and used said lottery selection on Kamilla Cardoso who was fresh off winning a national championship that year with South Carolina. Later on in that draft, the Sky selected again and chose Angel Reese – another high-profile prospect who has experienced national championship euphoria.
By now, that Julia Poe interview with Reese in the Chicago Tribune where Reese mentioned where the Sky need to land great players in free agency has more than made the rounds. Not only that, but she all but promised that if Chicago is not aggressive in free agency that Reese may have to take her talents elsewhere.
How did Chicago respond? By suspending Reese for half a game.
The last game that Reese played was vs. the Connecticut Sun. The result was an 88-64 win for the Sky – one where Reese did what she does best and that is record double-doubles.
Reese scored 18 points and brought down 13 rebounds.
In a sense, the bag fumble that the Sky appear to be committed to did not begin with the suspension of Reese for what she said to Poe.
It began following the conclusion of last season – which was a very taxing one for the Sky. Many first-time WNBA media people pit Reese and her Sky on the opposite end of a “rivalry” with Caitlin Clark and her Indiana Fever. It had real consequences mentally for Chicago as many a Sky player – including Reese and Chennedy Carter – encountered intense racial harassment on social media.
One woman was a rock for the team – coach Teresa Weatherspoon. Even though last season was a trying one for the Sky – the team finished 13-27, Chicago was only two games shy of the eighth and final playoff berth which was claimed by the Atlanta Dream. Chicago may have made the playoffs last season if not for late-season injuries. Anyone who attended the Sky’s exit pressers from last year could tell how much those players loved Coach Spoon.
Yet – Coach Spoon was unceremoniously fired by the team after one season. Her season did get a happy ending as she saw the team she made a name with as a player – the New York Liberty – win its first-ever championship.
Reese was visibly heartbroken about what happened and she even expressed how heartbroken she was on her social media. Facility issues aside, one could likely point to this as the beginning of the fissure between the Sky and the Chi-Town Barbie.
This season did not help matters even though we saw a Reese that featured an expanded skillset from her 2024 rookie season.
What matters heavily regarding Reese’s comments is she had the guts to speak truth to power. She also mentioned how she believes the Sky need someone younger as a point guard than Courtney Vandersloot.
Do not get us wrong – Sloot is one of the all-time greats and has won championships with multiple franchises (Sky and Liberty). But there is a lot of mileage on those tires and that proved itself last season with the Liberty and this season as she returned to Chicago. She has already announced her intent to return next season but one would think her role at this stage in her career would be to take Hailey Van Lith under her wing.
Chicago does need a better roster – one would think that would be the conclusion a team would arrive at after a dreadful 10-34 campaign.
Perhaps Maddy Westbeld could be one of those players. She did finish her 2025 season with a flourish – 25 points against the Liberty. Elizabeth Williams, Kia Nurse, Ariel Atkins, Kia Nurse and Rachel Banham are also good players – there is no such thing as a horrible player in the WNBA.
Another team also finished 10-34 – the Dallas Wings. The difference between the Wings and Sky is Dallas is in the first season of having its new franchise cornerstone in Paige Bueckers and will definitely add to their team for 2026 as the Wings will be in the lottery with the highest odds of landing the top overall selection.
Another difference between the Wings and Sky? Dallas still has its 2026 lottery pick. Chicago’s actually belongs to the Minnesota Lynx (even though the Sun’s is actually the Sky’s).
In a perfect world, one noteworthy Wing in Arike Ogunbowale would be a target for Jeff Pagliocca and Tyler Marsh. After all – she is a native of Milwaukee and played her collegiate basketball at Notre Dame which has a massive fanbase in Chicago. She would be a fan favorite in Skytown overnight.
One thing Dallas and Chicago have in common is seeing star players depart for greener pastures. In the case of the Wings, Skylar Diggins, Liz Cambage, Satou Sabally and Natasha Howard all come to mind. One can think about Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles with Chicago, even though Fowles – to her credit – did give glowing remarks to the Sky organization at her Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech last weekend.
In the case of the Sky, Candace Parker – a Chicagoland native – was the best thing to ever happen to that franchise. With a core that included Parker, Sloot, Allie Quigley, Kahleah Copper and Diamond DeShields, (and James Wade as head coach) Chicago won its first-ever championship in 2021.
As time goes on, two things become clearer. One – the Sky’s front office from Michael and Harvey Alter to John Rogers to Jeff Pagliocca are still drunk off that 2021 championship. Second – that championship was won despite that front office.
Because look at how the band broke up immediately after the Sun put an abrupt end to Chicago’s repeat bid in 2022. The Las Vegas Aces – which won that 2022 championship – were supposed to face the Sky in that season’s Finals but Connecticut had other ideas.
This spat that the Sky are having with Reese where she is being punished for telling the truth is not what an organization should want out there on the heels of an anonymous poll where WNBA players rated the Sky as the W’s worst-run franchise.
It sends a message to players – especially the litany of free agents out there – that Chicago is not doing much to beat the “worst-run” allegations. Not to mention the anonymous executive imploring Reese to get out of dodge.
Reese, because of her on-court play and her off-court celebrity, is the best thing to happen to the Sky since Parker – the only three-time winner of the Ms. Illinois Basketball Award – returned for the sole purpose of winning one more championship for her home region.
Instead of doing what smart franchises do – ensure its star players still feel comfortable wearing its colors, the Sky appear to have a near-nonchalant attitude to the idea of Reese in another uniform. This franchise may be based in Chicago, but its front office is giving more Peoria or Rockford or Champaign-Urbana.
Chicago’s season finale was at Wintrust Arena against the defending champion Liberty – a team with a fanbase that showers Reese with love every time she steps foot inside Barclays Center. New York won by a final of 91-86 but the real story was how fans held up “Free Angel” signs and chanted “Free Angel!” and “Free 5!” and…
“Fire Jeff!”
The “Fire Jeff!” chants sounded eerily familiar to the “Fire Nico!” chants that broke out at Dallas Mavericks games before the trade heard around the world (Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis) happened. In fact, someone who wearing a “Free Angel” shirt at Wintrust Arena got escorted by Reese’s own security to courtside.
Among Skytown’s residents, Pagliocca has effectively turned himself into Nico Harrison – and this is without a trade being completed for Reese.
This is about why a franchise in the third-largest media market is being ran as if it is a low-budget mom and pop shop. This is about why a franchise in the third-largest media market is so behind its peer franchises like the Liberty, Aces, Fever, Phoenix Mercury and Seattle Storm (also independent of NBA ownership ala Chicago) in terms of state-of-the-art facilities.
Even the Golden State Valkyries – just now completing its first season as a WNBA franchise – look more like a well-oiled machine as opposed to the Sky which resembles a franchise in desperate need of an oil change.
And as much as Pagliocca appears to have been set up as the fall guy for all of this, the real criticism should be of Rogers and the Alter brothers. As much credit as the Alters deserve for bringing the WNBA to Chicago in the mid-2000s, they deserve as much criticism for how it is being run in juxtaposition of its peer franchises.
The Alters look more and more like relics of a WNBA that no longer exists – a WNBA where owners would literally use their teams as write-offs for tax purposes. Thanks to today’s players, today’s WNBA requires real investment because its players demand it and are deserving of it. Today’s players will literally vet a team’s ownership to decide if it wants to make a decision on signing with said team as a free agent.
And while the Sky are in the process of finally building a practice facility, they are far behind a number of their WNBA peers in that arms race. And who knows if it will be as plush as the ones other teams like the Aces, Liberty, Storm and Mercury currently enjoy. Also – we now have real questions as to what happened with that 20th Anniversary court.
Reese is one of the most beloved of WNBA players because of how “unapologetically Angel” she is – whether she is in front of a podcast microphone, on the court or on the orange (or red) carpet. Something such as this will continue to reverberate among players – especially given players are not exactly seeing eye to eye with owners at this moment because of the impasse over a collective bargaining agreement.
One irony of all of this is how one of the Sky’s signature colors is, of course, Sky blue – depicting beautiful blue skies overhead. One asks if that sky blue ought to be changed to dark gray given the dampening mood and darkening clouds above Wintrust Arena at this point.
