Biggest Takeaways from the Sky's Offseason & Overseas Play
Dana & Marina make significant strides, Isabelle Harrison returns and one of the Sky's young stars underlines her considerable potential.
With Marina Mabrey and Elizabeth Williams’ hectic final month with Mersin complete, the only basketball for fans to focus on now is the Sky’s upcoming preseason slate. Offseason work is, of course, important for all teams, but it’s especially key for a young team like Chicago with plenty of players who are eager to get as much competitive, on-court time as possible to continue adding to their always developing games. Thus, the work that’s been done overseas by Mabrey, Williams and several other Chicago players is not just noteworthy but crucial to how the team will ultimately perform during the 2024 season and beyond. Let’s dive into who benefitted most from their offseason work and what facets of their game are most improved ahead of the team’s opener in Dallas in less than three weeks’ time.
Dana Evans & Marina Mabrey Aren’t Just Scorers
After finishing as the Sky’s 2nd and 6th leading scorers a season ago, it was no secret going in to the offseason that Marina Mabrey and Dana Evans could score. And, much like in past European campaigns, scoring was not a problem for either this offseason—with Mabrey finishing second in the EuroLeague in scoring (17.5 PPG) and Evans doing the same in the EuroCup (22.6 PPG). Their efficiency, at times, was not to the standard they’ll need in the W, but there’s no substitute for the game’s most valuable skill—scoring. That said, there are plenty of useful complimentary skills that a scorer can develop and it’s especially important for Mabrey and Evans to do so considering they’ll share the backcourt in Chicago this season.
And to that point, both Mabrey and Evans have made considerable strides as a playmakers throughout the season—with their most impactful performances often coming in some of the season’s most important moments. Mabrey finished third in the EuroLeague in total assists (95) and delivered her most impressive string of games in the challenging late winter period after star teammate Alina Iagupova left Mersin and before Kahleah Copper joined the team. With the vast majority of the scoring and playmaking burden shifted onto Mabrey’s shoulders, she produced five consecutive games of six or more assists during a key stretch of the EuroLeague group stage in January and February where Mersin went 4-1 and secured their place in the quarterfinals.
Her patience and steady approach to the game during this stretch stood out most with her decision-making as the team’s central offensive hub showcasing a mature player capable of correctly choosing when to shoot and when to find others (more here). While the heavy workload during this stretch likely contributed to the apparent fatigue that hurt her shooting numbers late in the season, the continued progress Mabrey showed as an offensive leader reinforces the investment (no matter how steep) former Sky general manager James Wade made in her last offseason. While sharing a backcourt with Evans will make it less necessary for Mabrey to have the ball in hand so often during the WNBA season, you can still expect to see a heavy dose of offensive sets in new coach Teresa Weatherspoon’s playbook running through the former Notre Dame guard. Mabrey’s defensive game, while somewhat stunted by the aforementioned late-season fatigue, also continues to progress with her ability to separate offensive outcomes from defensive engagement continuing to trend in a positive direction overseas (after plenty of growth in that area in the W in ‘23).
Despite Mabrey taking on a considerable load, Evans probably had even more offensive responsibility with Beşiktaş. After taking on a similarly high-usage role with the Sky’s second unit in 2023, Evans’ game is starting to show clear signs of growth from the wide range of opportunity and responsibility that’s been thrown her way. The improvement in her game that’s stood out most is her ability to vary her tempo in the pick-and-roll. It’s no secret that Evans has plenty of speed and, when coming off a screen with a full head of steam, she gives herself the best chance to score at the basket. However, to be an effective and unpredictable point guard, it was crucial for Evans to add some more gears and consistently use them to create unique scoring chances for herself and others. In Emre’s pick-and-roll heavy offense, we started to see this skill blossom and Evans’ work with former Sky center Li Yueru in Turkey has further underlined the work she’s put in to improve. By coming off of Yueru’s screens at varying speeds (and with various angles of attack), Evans allows herself to work into long and mid-range shots, kick to a teammate or dump off to the roller. That variety makes her and her team’s offense far more difficult to stop and makes her top-end speed even more lethal as—when she does engage the afterburners—the defense is caught flat-footed much more often.
The other aspect of Evans’ game which has grown is her ability to find open teammates after collapsing the defense. From the moment the game starts, Evans’ drives and floaters from 10-feet and in always seem to be steadily laying a trap for the defense. Because she’s such a ball-dominant player and can score in bunches, the defense has to respect those drives and a second defender often steps across to help. When they do, Evans is finding the holes left in the defense with greater accuracy and consistency. While that growth has been substantial, the Sky will need more efficiency from Evans for this style to be sustainable long-term. There’s nothing wrong with a couple of misses if the penetration before the shot collapses the defense anyways, but it will be difficult for any offense to succeed with a ball-dominant player shooting 39.9% on two-pointers. That said, the positive developments of Evans’ game this offseason bode well for her succeeding in the W long-term because she’s demonstrated that she has the vision and patience needed to be an elite playmaker as well. Defensively, Evans hasn’t lost a step and figures to be a strong candidate for the all-defensive team at season’s end.
Isabelle Harrison is Back + Ready for Big Contract Year
We didn’t see enough of Harrison (159 total minutes in 9 games) to make any huge conclusions about changes to her game, but we saw plenty to suggest she can build rhythm quickly when she plays her first WNBA game in a year-and-a-half next month. She went for 41 in just her fourth game back, and though it will, of course, take time for her to build the stamina needed for longer shifts of 30+ minutes in the WNBA, the Sky should feel confident that the foundation is already there for that process to happen relatively quickly. As for the technical aspects of her game, Harrison shot 52% from the floor—a solid figure given the high volume of mid-range shots she was taking—and her shooting stroke looked in solid rhythm from the jump. Her touch around the basket was sharp, she was extremely intelligent running the floor, and her defense started to pick up steam as the games wore on in Athletes Unlimited. Returning from injury in a contract year with, potentially, her first chance to be a nightly starter since 2019, Harrison looks ready for a big season. While her offensive skills shined in AU, don’t be surprised if it’s her defense that stands out in Weatherspoon’s system once she picks up more rhythm at that end of the court.
Michaela Onyenwere Primed for Her Breakout
Onyenwere set the table extremely well for a contract season of her own with a strong run overseas with Ormanspor—who massively outperformed preseason expectations in Turkey. Her selling point for the club, as it should be in Chicago, is her ability to do a little bit of everything. She finished as the team’s second-leading scorer (17.9 PPG), had solid efficiency (53.4% FG) despite a varied shot profile that included plenty of mid-range and three-point shots, was a consistent part of the team’s efforts on the glass (7.1 RPG) and regularly defended opposing 2s, 3s and 4s. For a Chicago team that passed on Rickea Jackson, playing time at the three feels more guaranteed than it did a few months ago, and Onyenwere is a player full of potential who has the chance to walk next offseason—meaning the Sky have every incentive to get her on court this year and get a better feel of what she can offer in a bigger role. She’s not Kahleah Copper, and it’s not fair to hold her to that standard in 2024, but Onyewnere is the Sky player best equipped to guard the opponent’s most dangerous offensive player any given night (a role Kah was tasked with last season). Again like Copper, she showed in Turkey that she has the ability to take over the game offensively despite expending high energy on the defensive end. Any player who can feed off the momentum from one end to enhance their performance at the other figures to be a cornerstone for what Weatherspoon wants to build, and Onyenwere fits that mold as well as anyone else on the Chicago roster.