Technically, the Chicago Sky are not the worst team in the WNBA right now by record; that honor would belong to either of the teams with one fewer win, the Connecticut Sun or the Seattle Storm. But after Monday's WNBA slate, which featured the Sky's 92-63 loss to the Sun, and Seattle's much more competitive 112-110 loss to the Dallas Wings, the distinction feels like one without a difference. What do you call a team that loses to the worst team in the WNBA by 29 points?
The Sky have been bad for the better part of four years now, but for a hopeful sliver of this summer, they weren't. Last year's roster had been overhauled, the bad vibes cast aside by trades and free agency. If the big picture was a little hazy, the names weren't: A trade for Rickea Jackson quickly filled the star vacuum left by trading Angel Reese; veteran free agents Skylar Diggins and Natasha Cloud gave the team some needed depth at point guard; signing Azurá Stevens promised more spacing for Kamilla Cardoso. Their season began with four straight games on the road; they returned to Chicago an impressive 3-1, with wins against the contending Valkyries and Lynx. Still, the homecoming was bittersweet. Minutes into the final game of the road trip in Minnesota, Jackson had torn her ACL. The Sky did rally to win that game, even down their leading scorer. They've won just one of their 12 games since.
This is the Chicago Sky's story at its simplest: a promising team aimless without its star, derailed by plain misfortune. It might well be the story that grants general manager Jeff Pagliocca and head coach Tyler Marsh more time in their jobs. But every night the Sky play, it gets harder to believe the story is true. In the history of basketball, you will find many good teams that have sustained good play in the absence of a top scorer. Often the reason those teams are good is because they are not so otherwise flawed as to immediately be felled by one player’s absence.
It says unflattering things about the rest of the team that Jackson still led the Sky in All-Star votes when the WNBA published the first returns from fan votes last week. Taken altogether, this Sky roster is just not particularly good at anything. Cardoso (right behind Jackson in All-Star votes) is too easily attacked in pick-and-rolls; even with a healthy Jackson, frontcourt defense would still be a real weak point on the team. Save the surprising bright spot of undrafted rookie Sydney Taylor, no one on the Sky can create her own shot like Jackson could.
Capitalizing on good assisted looks has been a challenge, too. The Sky have been a poor shooting team in the Pagliocca era, but where Reese's rebounding could at least buy them extra possessions in past years, they are now the worst rebounding team in the league. The 12-4 Atlanta Dream, Reese's new team, lead the league in rebounding percentage. When they played earlier this month, Reese out-rebounded the Sky's entire starting lineup by herself, 17-16. Blame Pagliocca for this: Rebounding is certainly a matter of personnel. But the issue doesn't reflect well on Marsh, either; it's also a matter of scheme and effort.
At the press conference the Sky held after the Jackson trade and the Diggins signing, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Alissa Hirsh asked Pagliocca a well-deserved question: In Pagliocca's third season as general manager, he was fielding his third very different roster. Offseason turnover has not been totally unique to the Sky; the changes wrought by the new collective bargaining agreement made for more leaguewide movement than there might otherwise be. But the shape and makeup of the Sky roster still weren't wholly convincing: "The goal is ultimately to retain a core, right?"
"Yeah, that's typically the goal," he replied, a note of condescension in his voice. He went on to say he liked the team's balance of youth and vets. "The plan is to keep this team together for as long as we can, and keep winning."
Keep winning! If sticking together forever and winning were the goal, you would not know it from watching the Sky, who were 10-34 last season. Every night Diggins has not burned the place down in frustration feels like a miracle. After an incredible collapse in Dallas this past Saturday, one that saw the Sky blow a six-point lead with 35 seconds left and without ever being intentionally fouled, the usually upbeat Cloud knocked over one of those rope stanchions by the tunnel.
The Storm and Sun can offer their fans something to dream on. For Seattleites, it is the impossibly fluid 6-foot-6 20-year-old Dominique Malonga, who scored 37 points of turnaround jumpers and dribble-drive layups Monday night against the Wings. In Connecticut, one can almost feel the crisp suits and shiny briefcases of the Ernst & Young accountants supervising next year's draft lottery, which will be weighted in the Sun's favor after two losing seasons; at the very least, they won't be subjecting poor Connecticuters to terrible basketball anymore when they relocate to Houston next season. For Chicago, no such hope, no such shine, not even any reprieve. The nature of the WNBA schedule means a team can end up seeing an opponent several times in a short span, and the Sky have indeed been unlucky to play the Lynx three times already and the Wings twice, but you could argue the worst is still to come: The Sky are due to see the Aces twice in the next couple weeks, and there are still three more games against the Liberty on the schedule. The schedule argument hardly seems worth having in the first place. If a team can lose to the Sun by nearly 30 points, it will find no softness on the schedule at all.
Injuries and minutes restrictions may have screwed up the Sky rotation in the early going, but will only improve their prospects so much now. The team announced Friday that Jackson underwent a successful ACL surgery, but she won't be back before next season. DiJonai Carrington and Courtney Vandersloot, the other two players on the injured list, will certainly be welcome when they return this season; Carrington in particular will find her teammates have left plenty of offensive rebounding work for her to do. But neither of them is the type to turn around a franchise's fortunes herself, and both are on short-term deals anyway. It's not clear that the long-term future in Chicago includes them. It's not clear who the long-term future in Chicago does include. (Certainly not Olivia Miles, nor Sonia Citron.) Do they own their own first-round pick in next year's draft, or the one after that? You can probably guess the answer.
