Jeff Pagliocca’s favorite place to be in a basketball gym is out of the way.
As a father watching his son’s high school games, that means grabbing a square of space in the top row of the bleachers, away from any conversationalists or distractions.
As the general manager of the Sky, his preferred seat is in the farthest corner of the gym, where he has eyes on everything but goes unseen.
Pagliocca is in his second year as the Sky’s first GM. At his core, however, he’s just a basketball junkie driven by modest dreams of being a successful skills trainer. What transpired over a 20-plus year career was a reroute he never saw coming.
‘‘When the Sky approached me about the position was the first time [becoming a GM] ever crossed my mind,’’ Pagliocca told the Sun-Times.
Pagliocca might not have given the position much consideration, but in his first 16 months on the job he has proved himself to be one of the most talented young executives in the WNBA with a strong upside — not unlike the Sky roster he has built. Potential, however, means nothing in a Chicago sports market that hasn’t experienced a title since the Sky won in 2021.
Pagliocca understands the only way to quantify success with the Sky is with victories and, one day, another championship banner.
He began his career in basketball as the boys junior varsity coach at Stevenson High School and quickly learned he was motivated by more than X’s and O’s. He wanted to help players develop and perfect the skills that made the game great. After one season at Stevenson, he left to open his own player-development business, Evolution Athletics.
‘‘It’s a little-known fact that I never played basketball,’’ Pagliocca said. ‘‘Ever.’’
He laughs while making this admission now. But when he was in his mid-20s and just starting out, he worked tirelessly to keep anyone from wising up. His routine was all-consuming.
Pagliocca started with film study, spending hours watching tape of greats such as Steve Nash. He would spend days at a time analyzing how Nash got to his spots, the mechanics behind his shot and how he played point guard until he had the skills down to a formula he could teach step-by-step to his players.
But as much value as Pagliocca got from studying the nuances of Hall of Famers’ games, he got just as much from studying players who made errors. Then he’d head to the gym and practice whatever moves he intended to demonstrate to his athletes. Once he had that down, he would be ready for his one-on-one sessions.
Pagliocca was broke, perfecting this method for the first three to four years by training middle school kids.
Duke basketball coach Jon Scheyer and former No. 2 overall NBA pick Evan Turner were Pagliocca’s first breakthrough clients. Both were high school kids with promise.
Turner worked with Pagliocca until he retired after a 10-year career in the NBA. Pagliocca’s disposition is what separated him from other trainers, Turner said.
‘‘Winners win,’’ Turner said. ‘‘He went from being a rocker to teaching himself basketball to having the No. 1 training spot in the state with tons of pros walking in and out of the building. When me and the homies pulled up when I was playing, we were at UIC playing in Pagliocca’s runs.’’
Pagliocca’s client list grew to include more than 30 of the best players in the area, including pros such as Luol Deng, Mikal Bridges, Enes Kanter, Patrick Williams and Patrick Beverley.
His first two WNBA clients were the Sky’s Diamond DeShields and Stephanie Dolson in 2021. The next year, after DeShields was traded and Dolson signed with the Liberty, he got a call from Russia that wound up changing the trajectory of his career.
‘‘I want a slot,’’ point guard Courtney Vandersloot initially said to Pagliocca on the long-distance call during a stint overseas.
Before the call, the two had shared brief exchanges. Pagliocca picked up on Vandersloot’s no-nonsense, tunnel-vision demeanor and stayed out of her way, opting not to offer critiques or feedback until she asked.
‘‘She probably scared me a little bit,’’ Pagliocca joked.
Vandersloot’s call opened the door for him to pick apart her game, piece-by-piece.
In 2022, Vandersloot’s fears that she was plateauing were put to rest. She averaged 11.8 points — the third-highest scoring output of her career — and shot 48.1% from the field. Her 57 clutch points were the third-most in the WNBA that season, trailing only Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu, emphasizing the confidence she had established working with Pagliocca.
One of the reasons Pagliocca became such a highly sought-after skills guy was that his harsh but honest feedback led to big results. His clients praised him for his insight, and they think it will help shape his success as a GM.
‘‘The best GM I was around early in his career was Brad Stevens,’’ Turner said. ‘‘One thing Brad does that’s similar to Jeff, the environment doesn’t influence them; they’re the same individual. They have a high moral code, and part of that is caring about individuals.
‘‘People like that always win. I don’t know if Jeff’s as smart as Brad because Brad’s, like, the smartest dude I’ve ever met. But when it comes down to working with people, relationships and doing what’s right, I think Jeff is confident enough to stick by the buck.’’
In his first year as the Sky’s GM, Pagliocca was getting three or four hours of sleep a night as he tried to put a recently derailed championship train back on the tracks.
Entering free agency in 2024, the Sky had little capital in the two upcoming drafts and no plans of a practice facility or significant investment to tout to free agents. Pagliocca tried to sell two of the WNBA’s top targets — Skylar Diggins-Smith and Nneka Ogwumike — on an unstable product. Meanwhile, the last remaining starter from the Sky’s 2021 title team, Kahleah Copper, was beginning to realize another season in Chicago would be detrimental to her career and asked for a trade.
After granting Copper’s request, Pagliocca’s hand was forced again when Marina Mabrey asked to be dealt halfway through the 2024 season.
The Sky’s tailspin wasn’t a result of his decisions, but he was responsible for making sense of those failures. Between his first free agency and the Mabrey trade, Pagliocca proved his affinity for making aggressive moves. In the Copper trade with the Mercury, he acquired the No. 3 overall pick in 2024 that he would use to select Kamilla Cardoso. Dealing Mabrey to the Sun led to a pick swap that might result in a lottery pick in 2026. The Sky have a combined nine picks in the next two drafts, thanks to Pagliocca’s dealings.
Nothing provided a better indication that Pagliocca was the right hire than the moves he executed during free agency this year.
One of the Sky’s biggest hurdles after a season in which they failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2018 and struggled with their culture was proving they are a franchise that can attract premier talent. After the firing of first-year coach Teresa Weatherspoon, that meant making the right hire for her replacement. From there, Pagliocca thought the Sky could land the caliber of players necessary to put the franchise back on a track toward title contention.
Early in the hiring process, Pagliocca targeted former Aces assistant Tyler Marsh. He was impressed by Marsh’s championship pedigree as a player-development coach and how he helped improve the games of WNBA stars such as three-time MVP A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young, but he was unsure whether the Sky had a shot at luring him away from the Aces.
Turns out, an opportunity to lead a young core for a franchise in flux was precisely the challenge Marsh was interested in.
A year after striking out big in free agency, Pagliocca returned to negotiations equipped with a high-caliber coach and tangible franchise improvements to sell. Vandersloot was at the center of Pagliocca’s plan to stabilize the Sky.
Signing Vandersloot required more than nostalgia and the fairy tale of ending her career where it began. She needed proof that she wasn’t signing up to be a babysitter on a team with no plan or direction.
‘‘I knew we had to bring it in a way that was going to win over one of the toughest people I know, someone who doesn’t stand for anything but the truth and data,’’ Pagliocca said. ‘‘She’s not someone who gets the wool pulled over her eyes.’’
About a week after their meeting, Pagliocca got an early-morning call from Vandersloot.
‘‘I’m gonna come back,’’ Vandersloot told her former trainer-turned-GM.
Pagliocca’s next step was adding to the Sky’s backcourt with more high-character players who could help improve the locker-room dynamic and spacing issues. He met those needs with guards Kia Nurse and Rebecca Allen.
When the Sky promoted Pagliocca to GM in October 2023, they were adrift in a storm and had no clear direction or plan for navigating their way through it. His greatest accomplishment thus far has been taking the team from what was threatening to become a state of perpetual rebuild and carving a path back to becoming a club in the top half of the league standings.
The Sky still must take considerable steps before they are back in discussions about title contention, but Pagliocca has put them on course.
‘‘Personal goal was to prove to the current and prospective players that Chicago is going to be a consistent playoff team and be in the championship hunt,’’ Pagliocca said. ‘‘To me, what means the most is when I know we’re gaining ground, getting the right types of people here that want to play the way we want to play.’’