PHOENIX — On Day Two of the “Abruptly Benching a Future Hall of Famer” chapter of the Sky’s season, Tyler Marsh and Skylar Diggins still are not on the same page.
Marsh reiterated Tuesday that his conversations with Diggins would stay private. Diggins said they had not spoken further about the decision.
“It just seems like a basketball decision,” Diggins told the Sun-Times. “When I came here, I was told I was going to hold it down until Slooty got back, so I still don’t have very much clarity on that. If it was something different outside of that, I have to defer to him.”
She added: “I don’t know if it was because Sloot is available now and that’s how he envisioned it.”
Looking back, Diggins said she is not sure what “holding it down” until Courtney Vandersloot returned really meant.
Vandersloot has returned from an ACL injury and immediately reinvigorated the offense, even on a minutes restriction. Natasha Cloud also moved into the starting lineup against the Mercury, sending rookie Gabriela Jaquez to the bench.
One can point to plenty of legitimate basketball reasons to move Diggins to the second unit. Her defense has been inconsistent. Her efficiency at the rim has declined.
Marsh gave a vague explanation for the lineup change on Tuesday.
“It’s been a little of [our slow starts], and a little of some other stuff, chemistry-wise and whatnot,” Marsh said of the change to the rotation.
Heavy emphasis on the “chemistry-wise and whatnot.”
If this were only about basketball, it should not be so hard to explain publicly or privately.
We want more size. We want more rebounding. Pick your reason.
Cloud and Jacy Sheldon both have rotated out of the starting lineup this season with basic basketball explanations.
Diggins said Tuesday that Marsh did not necessarily owe her one.
But the Sky signed Diggins to a fairly expensive two-year deal. They lauded the move as proof their franchise was turning the corner. They have spent all season downplaying concerns about the wisdom of building around three highly accomplished veteran point guards.
Some sort of explanation — public, private or preferably both — will eventually be necessary.
Getting what you signed up for
Signing Diggins, a seven-time All-Star, this offseason was supposed to show that things were going to be different in Chicago.
It helped push back on the narratives surrounding the franchise and its ability to attract and retain star players.
Marsh even leaned into that idea during Diggins’ introductory news conference, saying she had been around the league long enough to discern “the fake from the real.”
They had been handpicked by a future Hall of Famer.
One they wanted to bring her toughness and credibility to their young core.
One who, they also had to know, had a reputation for speaking her mind and sometimes creating friction.
She publicly called out the Mercury organization in 2023 after she said she was not allowed to use its facilities during maternity leave. She got into it with then-teammate Diana Taurasi on the bench in 2022 and then missed the rest of the season, including the playoffs.
The full Diggins experience has followed her to Chicago — the accountability, the bluntness, the public call-outs and the emotion.
Diggins went public Monday that the experience in Chicago has not matched what she expected, citing miscommunication from staff and a lack of resources.
She can be a handful during games — yelling at staff, sometimes arriving late to midgame huddles or missing them altogether.
Amid all of that, she has had real leadership moments. When she called out the team during its losing streak, Cloud said it lit a fire under them. Cloud also has talked about Diggins providing useful messages during the losing stretch, like remembering that basketball is a “get to,” not a “got to.”
In other words: The Sky are getting the player they signed, in the situation they signed her into.
They signed a star who does not pull punches, placed her in a crowded backcourt with two other veteran guards who also needed heavy minutes and paired all of that with a second-year coach still learning the finer points of team-management.
The late-game disconnect
There is no one reason for the Sky’s 6-14 start. Not Diggins, not Marsh. But closing out games is one of them.
The Sky are 3-8 in clutch games, ranking 14th out of 15 teams.
Asked why the Sky have struggled to close games, Diggins said she wanted to choose her words carefully to avoid being a jerk.
“We don’t discuss late game very often,” she said. “I don’t think we have a set/reset play to run. We’ve been in that situation a lot of times. I would love to hear what [Marsh’s] late-game strategy is as far as what exactly we’ve been doing. It’s something we didn’t really work on a lot in preseason. We’ve found ourselves in certain predicaments over and over again. I don’t really know what the adjustments are.”
Still, Diggins took accountability for herself.
“From my player perspective, it’s mistakes that we’ve made as players that put us in that predicament,” she said. “But we take our cues in those situations from our coach. He’s the boss. He makes all the decisions.”
And the picture is genuinely mixed. Diggins is always in the closing group. She is the Sky’s second-highest clutch scorer behind Sydney Taylor. But her efficiency in those moments is just 31.6%.
Marsh, has taken accountability, too, but did not have a grand analysis on Tuesday.
“We just have to close games out,” Marsh said. “We’ve put ourselves in position of being in tight games. We’ve been in situations where we’ve been able to extend games. There’s been a couple of breakdowns here and there. Overall, we’ve been prepared in those moments. We’ve just come out on the short end at times.”
He believes they have been prepared. She would love to hear the plan.
Still not on the same page.
The good news, though, is that Diggins does think the Sky are playing a better brand of basketball overall.
“What I mean by that is showing resistance, not getting first quarter lulls, not falling to double-digit deficits in the first half,” she said.
Marsh has been saying that, too. Maybe that’s the place for both of them to start.
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