Training camp is a race to lay the foundation.
And so far, the reports out of the Sky‘s camp sound good. Players and coaches are using the words you want to hear: “competitive,” “high-energy,” “locked in.”
There’s been a lot of teaching from coach Tyler Marsh, and many new students. Not a lot of time to study the notes.
“The W is very accelerated,” Skylar Diggins said on Day 1. “Hi, nice to meet you. Now get over there and set me a screen.”
That helter-skelter cadence is true across the league. Some teams — New York, Las Vegas, Atlanta — have the luxury of returning their cores.
The Sky are not one of them.
Of the players active for the first two days of camp, only three — Hailey Van Lith, Maddy Westbeld and Rachel Banham — shared the floor at Wintrust Arena last season. The rest will have to learn each other on the fly.
Diggins. Azurá Stevens. Rickea Jackson. Players who now represent the future of the team.
Luckily, they have some touchpoints. Diggins played alongside Banham in Unrivaled this winter, and with Stevens in Dallas. Jackson and Stevens overlapped with the Sparks and in Unrivaled, too.
Maybe that will speed things along.
What’s working against them is the usual training camp chaos: overseas commitments and early-season injuries.
Kamilla Cardoso, who spent the offseason playing in China, has not yet reported. Veteran center Elizabeth Williams just finished her EuroLeague season. Both are expected back soon, but the Sky have only five days until their first preseason test against the Mercury.
And then there are the injuries.
Stevens is managing a stress injury in her knee. DiJonai Carrington underwent a follow-up procedure after last year’s foot surgery and will likely to miss multiple weeks, though no official timeline has been given.Courtney Vandersloot is still rehabbing her knee.
That’s a lot to manage for Marsh.
He is entering his second season with a roster that looks, on paper, better than last year’s. But he still has to make it gel.
And the injuries are likely bringing back memories of his first year.
Not pretty ones.
Last season unraveled quickly when Vandersloot went down in the seventh game. Other injuries piled up — Angel Reese, Ariel Atkins — and the team finished at the bottom of the league.
The rough start to Marsh’s head coaching career doesn’t seem to have changed him too much. He’s still the same presence — even-keeled, steady, rarely too high or too low. But there are small shifts. A little more edge in his post-practice huddle speeches. A clearer awareness of what can go wrong.
Maybe the most noticeable change is how Marsh is talking about load management. He’s been deliberate, even in the first two days, about protecting his veterans — Diggins especially.
“We gotta keep her healthy,” Marsh said of Diggins. “We gotta manage her load from a training camp standpoint so that she feels fresh going into the regular season.”
It’s the right lesson from last year, learned the hard way.
“We’re not naive to think this season won’t have any type of adversity,” Marsh said. “But we’re enjoying the moment right now. We’re trying to get cohesion and chemistry together in a short period of time, just like every team.”