2024 Chicago Sky Player Report Card: Kamilla Cardoso
After missing the start of the season due to injury, Cardoso flourished after the Olympic break--setting the table for a breakout 2025 season.
Kamilla Cardoso probably didn’t get as much attention as she normally would during her rookie year thanks to another high-profile, high-performance rookie in Chicago, but that didn’t stop her from delivering a fantastic debut season that quickly reinforced the Sky’s decision to choose her third overall in April’s draft and make her (belatedly) the center piece of the Kahleah Copper trade. Let’s dive into some of the unique aspects that made Cardoso’s season so impressive, and underline one area where she’s likely to take a big leap forward in 2025.
1. Passing & Decision Making
When you’re talking about a rookie center (and a 6’7” one no less), you don’t expect their ability to pass the basketball being one of the standout attributes of their debut season. However, for Cardoso, that was exactly the case as—after the Olympic break—we saw her distribution abilities flourish with more freedom and responsibility to do so in Teresa Weatherspoon’s offense. The flashes of the Brazilian passing out of the post to teammates on the perimeter were there before the break and continued after, but it was the touches Cardoso got at the perimeter in the final five weeks of the season which were so striking. Given the responsibility to hold the ball in positions where point guards (or other playmaking hubs) are usually operating and make the right decision for the good of the offense, Cardoso succeeded almost without fail and showcased extraordinary court vision—for most bigs of any experience—in what was her first professional season. And while those skills will certainly be handy, it’s arguably even more important to highlight the aforementioned passes out of the post. On one hand, they’re more typical of great bigs, but the reason they’re typical is because they’re highly coveted and valuable. Regardless of how Cardoso’s overall offensive game develops, she will always frighten opposing defenses because of her size, and the ability to exploit double teams (or even attempts at double teams) with a slick pass to the perimeter (or to another big underneath) will always help the offense flow. Of course, this is another area where—if the Sky can add shooters this winter—the skill holds even greater value thanks to the open looks teammates often get from those kick outs.
To go even further on that point, it’s not just Cardoso’s eye for a pass and touch when distributing the ball; it’s her ability to make the right decisions based on what the defense is giving her. The technical aspects of passing are part natural gift and part practice, but the tactical aspects that allow a player to understand what’s happening and make decisions with the ball accordingly usually only come with time. With Cardoso looking so wise beyond her years from the jump, the potential long-term is huge. As the years go by, Cardoso—thanks again to her prodigious size—is likely to see every single type of coverage that a defense can throw her way. As she accumulates those data points, she’ll only understand how to read defenses even better, and this already high-level decision making should become nearly perfect. Perfection, as a rule of thumb, is difficult to achieve, but Cardoso being on that type of trajectory after a single WNBA season (which was abbreviated by injury early on) bodes well for her being one of the premier passing centers in the W long term.
2. Defensive Instincts
It’s hard to quantify something like “instinct” with any degree of accuracy, but the eye test tells a very clear story about Cardoso’s instincts at the defensive end. In her final collegiate season at South Carolina, much was made of the Brazilian’s improvements defending in space—with her draft stock trending upward last spring largely as a result. And while those improvements were evident in her first professional season, I’d argue the improved work in space wouldn’t be worth much if Cardoso didn’t have such a knack for being in the right place to protect the rim. Even when she’s not in position for a routine block, Cardoso consistently shows an ability to recover into the play and use her size to make a play on the ball without fouling. (Though it must be said she racked up fouls much more consistently in the second half of the season—something to track early next season.) In doing so, she entirely alters the way the opposition views the floor—particularly guards who like to slash and score at the rim.
The defensive three-seconds rule that the WNBA uses means that the most dominant shot-blockers can’t simply linger at the rim, and the continued trend towards floor-spacing bigs means it’s even more difficult for an elite defender to camp out inside. Yet, with a player like Cardoso, the threat of a block coming from the weak side or even from behind on the path to the rim is never fully out of the question, and guards’ calculations about when to attack are inevitably impacted as a result. That’s not to say guards won’t drive merely because Cardoso is on the floor but, rather, to suggest that where Cardoso is on the floor becomes a part of the decision-making process for those guards and their coaching staffs. More time and energy spent trying to get Cardoso away from the basket to open up a driving lane inevitably means less of those same resources spent on everything else a team puts into their offense, and that’s a unique threat that Chicago’s defense presents that a team without a 6’7” center who moves like Cardoso can never offer. The big value here, of course, is in the shots that Cardoso does block or alter, but it’s important to recognize how her presence alone has the potential to alter an offense’s entire gameplan.
2025 Goal: Improved Efficiency Inside
The big ask many will have for Cardoso and Angel Reese is to add a mid-range or outside shot to their arsenal going into next season. And of course, if either can do so, the value will be huge. For Cardoso, the mid-range shot would be exceptionally valuable given the work we saw her do as a passer at the elbow and behind the perimeter—with opposing defenders having to be touch tight (and leaving space in behind) if there’s a legitimate threat of a shot going up.
However, I actually think the big value for Cardoso could be inside where she was decently efficient but can be even better. At the rim, Cardoso shot a solid 57.2% in 2024. For comparison, MVP candidate Jonquel Jones shot 79.3% and eventual winner A’ja Wilson shot 69.6% at the rim. And even if we look beyond the best interior players in the game, Teaira McCowan (who offers a good size comparison for Cardoso) managed 67.4% at the basket. In other words, there’s plenty of “low-hanging fruit” scoring for Cardoso to add to her numbers next season. And to some extent, that’s to be expected. McCowan (59.9%), Wilson (63.9%) and Jones (65.6%) were all considerably less efficient at the rim in their rookie seasons than they were in 2024 with experience and patience going a long way towards quickly cleaning up some “silly” misses inside. If Cardoso can match even McCowan’s mark of around 67%, it would result in a full point added to her 9.8 PPG scoring average from this season. And if that point doesn’t seem like much, consider the additional impact a more efficient Cardoso has for the rest of the offense. Most notably, doubles become an even more frequent occurrence—with her assist numbers (and others’ scoring averages) likely rising as a result.