She flows different.
In her own space, creating and existing in her own lane, playing the game of basketball and life on her terms and making sure neither the game or life ever plays her.
Natasha Cloud’s on-court introduction Wednesday was not the true indicator of what she will eventually mean to this Sky team. Let alone the organization. A team that features Cloud as the final piece to the puzzle may be able to eliminate attachment of the word “rebuild” from its existence.
The seven points and four rebounds in 18 minutes (with three turnovers) on Wednesday is not the indicator. The three-pointer that she hit with two seconds left to end the third quarter to pad the Sky’s lead from two to fives points, one the Valkyries’ announcer called “a monstrous shot,” is.
With no true training camp to bond with the other new players who were bonding with one another for the first time, it’s going to take a few games for Cloud’s flow to match theirs. Once there, belief being, she’ll become the “X, Y and Z” factor that define and shape the character of what this Sky team will become.
The one, in a less comparative way, to make us no longer miss Angel Reese the same way we no longer miss Justin Fields.
Her 30-day purgatory in free agency before she got here, straight ripped from the headlines: “Why Is Natasha Cloud Still a WNBA Free Agent?” (USA Today). “Unsigned Star Natasha Cloud Breaks Silence On Stressful WNBA Free Agency” (Yahoo Sports). “Natasha Cloud Has a WNBA Market Problem — not a political one” (High Post Hoops). “Natasha Cloud ‘Blackballing’ Drama Raises Alarm as Sue Bird Warns WNBA Risks Losing Its Identity” (College Sports Network).
Summed in perspective by Jonathan Giles for Ebony magazine on an Instagram post addressing the then comparison of Cloud as a modern-day Colin Kaepernick: “The WNBA says it’s built on advocacy. We say we love the idea of athletes having a platform and a voice. Well . . . [that’s] right up until they decide to use it.”
That said, Giles got direct when I spoke with him about Cloud being in Chicago. “I think she’s going to find a home [there] with the people of Chicago, I think the people in the city will embrace her, her style of play, her energy and who she is, 100 [%].”
Her calling the war between Israel and Hamas “genocide,” advocating to “Free Palestine,” her saying Trump “IS NOT A MAN OF CHRIST” for his Easter Sunday “you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell” bomb threat to Iran, her as one of the leading voices during the CBA negotiations telling W commissioner (Cathy Engelbert) and NBA commissioner (Adam Silver) to “Do your job. Negotiate and pay your people, your players, your workers.”
It was all too loud.
With hope that now that she’s here, it gets even louder.
But for her “here” and our “now” all of that becomes secondary to the true (basketball) meaning she’ll have for this team. Of her being the one who can tip the franchise’s directional scale. From hell to epiphany.
Her history of being elite, of being a champion, of an ability to score, run a squad from the point position, of her three all-defense WNBA teams, of leading the league in assists, of being the defending champ of the WNBA skills competition, of her leadership, her presence, what she pours into her teammates, into the teams she has played on, of being most players’ favorite player, of her plug-and-play in any system, of everything she’s bringing to the Sky.
A one-season, half-million-dollar ($555K) bargain.
If the Skylar Diggins signing by the Sky was the masterpiece, and adding Rickea Jackson and Azura Stevens was their master plan, then acquiring Cloud was the master coup. What Tash has the ability to bring is more necessary than game, its identity.
With whom they become may come through her.
If anything comes off as new so far with this team — it’s the fight. It seems three games in that there’s a spirit that runs through them as they play that didn’t exist in recent iterations. A sense of having to prove, a sense of intentionality and slight urgency without desperation or panic. That dog synergy of “we gon’ be here” mixed with the “we ain’t going’ nowhere” mixed with the play of early rookie sensation Gabriela Jaquez and personality and play of DiJonai Carrington once she enters the fold, with what Skylar and Tash will have solidified on the court and in the spotlight, we’ll witness the birth of a team that will lose games before they are beaten.
And that Cloud in the Sky could be the seminal reason.
It’s that get-stuff done approach she brings, that’s ours now. That mambacita mentality that seemed to leave when Kahleah Copper exited. Something missed, something needed. That light and spirit and advocacy that can not be dimmed, diminished or devalued. That oft-rare duality of competing and completing. That overlooked or dismissed intangible of joyous uncompromise that comes with her everywhere she goes.
Just different. The difference.