This is exactly how the dream was supposed to play out. Once it was decided after the draft in April, in which the Sky had two top-seven picks, that this season wasn’t one to sleep on.
As we didn’t sleep, we did a lot of daydreaming about this moment.
As you read this, the Sky will be doing the exact same as all others who rode on their 2024 season bandwagon:
Watching the WNBA playoffs from the sidelines.
(Which for both — team and us — is the best thing ever. What would us watching them lose and them experiencing those types of loses to a No. 1-seeded Liberty team hellbent on avenging a Finals loss from last year do to both of our psyches? The odds favor dodging the a– beating.)
Yes, extending their annual playoff streak to six years would have been dope, the longest current run of any professional team in Chicago, but when has a guaranteed beatdown and losing draft-lottery placement been the breeding ground for a 14-games-under-.500 — winners of just three of their last 16 games since the end of the Olympics — team’s come up?
The Sky were not ready, prepared or built for the WNBA postseason at all this year. Any games played by them after Game 40 without their three stars — Chennedy Carter, Camilla Cardoso and Angel Reese — would have been as (and I’m saying this as nicely as possible) “not smart” as James Wade including the 2025 first-round rights swap with the Wings to acquire Marina Mabrey before he left the scene of his own crime.
In the season’s recap, we can all look back on three games they lost between Aug. 23 and 28 against the Sun (82-80), Aces (77-75) and Mystics (74-70) — all games literally lost in the final minute, all games the Sky had legit and real chances of winning — as the games that broke them. That’s if we’re being honest and if they’re being honest with themselves.
Games that came in the middle of a seven-game losing streak that became the reality check they needed to make a “playoff-or-bust” pivot and use as proof that blood, sweat, guts, pride, heart and even luck weren’t enough to win necessary games when a bona fide three-point shooting threat, a solidified offensive structure, an elite non-post defensive stopper to slow down perimeter stars or make opponents uncomfortable at the end of games are the proclivity needed to win games you have to win but aren’t supposed to.
Now the real work begins. Even in the midst of the 40,000-square-foot, $38 million training and practice facility that’s on the way, a season record in attendance this year, the slight overachieving in play, the strong possibilities of re-signing Carter and Dana Evans (they smartly extended Elizabeth Williams earlier this week), the rookie season of coach Teresa Weatherspoon now behind her, the birth of Skye the Lioness, it’s time for the Sky to look in the mirror and the rearview mirror of this past season to see themselves and see the work they left behind that remains unfinished.
The trade demands and post-trade comments by both Kahleah Copper (“wanting to compete”) and Mabrey (“never been in a [championship] environment like [this]” before) that spoke directly to the non-championship qualities and nature that exists within the organization need to be first acknowledged on the terms of merit and then addressed in order to solve.
Securing a serious free agent (Satou Sabally or Natasha Howard, anyone? Bringing Gabby Williams back, anyone? Anyone?) is the front office’s main assignment. Finishing at the rim and drastically upping her shooting percentage will be Reese’s only assignment. Learning to proactively move defensively and stay out of foul trouble will be Cardoso’s only assignments. Not being in the lottery again in 2026 because of record is the single organizational assignment on the table from this moment forward. Then there’s the draft.
The name drops are an overabundance of opulence and fortune: Te-Hina Paopao, Olivia Miles, Azzi Fudd, Raven Johnson, Hailey Van Lith (Rori Harmon, Georgia Amoore and Shayeann Day-Wilson, all at 5-6, might be too small to fill the role the Sky need at point, but all are good enough), Emily Ryan, Sonia Citron, Laila Phelia. The lead guard spot in this year’s draft is generational. And the Sky will have first or second dips on one. And one is all they need.
Using that single selection with Pick 2-4 to turn their backcourt alongside Carter next season into a Sky adaptation of something closely resembling what Caitlin Clark/Kelsey Mitchell were able to become 180 miles down I-65 is the dream. Meaning the choice has to be better than a perfect one.
It all comes back to those three games they lost in the middle of that seven-game losing stretch. They will win those games next season. That’s what losing these final two games and not making the playoffs will do for them, which they won’t lose next season, either. That’s what the upcoming draft will do for them, that’s what the major key free-agent signing will do for them, that’s what this entire offseason will do for them.
Then the dream will be complete. Just far, far from over.