How Michaela Onyenwere Can Improve During New 1-Year Contract With Sky
Chicago tied a restricted free agent that figures to be a key part of their future to a new deal but how can she keep improving in 2025 and beyond?
After the Sky signed Michaela Onyenwere to a new 1-year deal on Saturday, one of the centerpieces of the Kahleah Copper trade can now return her focus squarely to preparing for a 2025 season that seems to have serious breakout potential. After a number of almost emergences, the fourth-year forward finally flexed her huge potential on a nightly basis after moving into Chicago’s starting 5 for the final 16 games of last season and will look to build on that strong finish over the course of a full season beginning in May. Let’s explore some of the key questions that figure to define the success or failure of the former Rookie of the Year’s second professional contract.
Does she dive all the way in or out of the mid-range?
At several points in the twelve months since the Sky acquired Onyenwere from the Mercury, I’ve referred to the forward as a three-level scoring threat. And yet, her numbers from a season ago suggest one of those levels, the mid-range, is missing. After hitting just 29.3% of 41 mid-range attempts in 2023 in Phoenix, Onyenwere only marginally improved her efficiency (30.3%) on 8 fewer shots in that area in her first year in Chicago. For context, Courtney Williams—one of the W’s premier mid-range scorers—shot 46.2% on 277 (!!) mid-range attempts a year ago. Now, don’t get me wrong. Chicago and new head coach Tyler Marsh won’t expect Onyenwere to produce that kind of efficiency (or get that kind of volume) in the mid-range, but the Sky need to either (1) see an uptick in both numbers in 2025 or (2) have Onyenwere work to eliminate the shot from her game entirely.
And if we’re being totally honest, Onyenwere doesn’t need to take mid-range shots to be a valuable offensive player. Good skill development work during last offseason saw a huge uptick in her three-point shooting performance last year (up over 5 percentage points to 36.8%), and her efficiency in the restricted area has been consistent for most of her professional career (55.7%) including last season’s career best (56.7%) mark. In modern professional basketball, there are two shots which are analytically coveted above all others—lay-ins and three-pointers—and Onyenwere can score both with a solid degree of efficiency. So long as she continues to develop her three-point shot and trends towards the 40% mark she was above for much of last season, there’s every reason to believe that Onyenwere can be a plus-offensive player who spaces the floor, attacks closeouts and keeps up with (or eventually exceeds) her career scoring numbers.
That said, there’s a reason I have called Onyenwere a three-level scorer, and it’s because she showcased an ability to consistently score from the mid-range with Ormanspor in the Turkish league last winter. She shot a staggering 58.8% on 10.9 two-point attempts per game overseas, and a good amount of the attempts that made up those numbers were from the mid-range. With her name a spot or two lower on the scouting report in the W, Onyenwere has a chance to be a serious offensive threat for the Sky if she can recapture that rhythm. The question, then, is whether (1) Onyenwere needs more volume to get there and (2) if Chicago can find her that volume in the natural flow of their offense. If I had to guess, Marsh will at least give it a shot in the early stages of the season—with the current roster’s natural slant towards scoring inside meaning any potential sources of offense from outside the paint are worth exploring.
Even if Onyenwere’s mid-range game ends up becoming marginalized, expect to see a focus on elevating her efficiency on shots taken inside the paint but out of the restricted area. Returning to her 2023 level on those shots (42.9%) after she struggled mightily against packed paints a season ago (34.1%) would be a huge plus for her overall offensive repertoire.
Can Onyenwere become a bigger statistical contributor?
Anyone who’s watched the Sky knows that Onyenwere is a classic example of a player whose biggest impact comes from beyond the box score. Her effort and energy set her apart and got her time on the floor last season (even in the parts of the year when it looked like the coaching staff really didn’t want to play her). Yet, it’s also fair to say there’s a reason we track the stats and advanced metrics that we do, and—for whatever reason—Onyenwere didn’t perform well in many of them last season.
She finished 10th on the Sky in rebounding percentage, 12th in assist percentage, 11th in steals percentage, 6th in block percentage, 8th in true shooting and 12th in PER (a comprehensive rating). Again, there’s more to basketball than stats, and I don’t—for a second—believe Onyenwere was the Sky’s 12th best player last season. But at the same time, there has to be an expectation that she chips in somewhere and carves out a statistical niche during the life of this new contract (and the one that follows assuming Chicago tries to retain her next winter).
Part of that niche is likely going to be three-point shooting, and Onyenwere has already backed that up with top-four finishes in percentage (36.8% - 3rd) and makes (25 - 4th) on last year’s roster. However, I’d also expect to see more from her when it comes to steals and assists this season.
On the steals front, there’s a natural expectation that a defender of Onyenwere’s high level will see the numbers follow sooner or later—with her length and athleticism in the passing lanes likely to give her a chance to take the 0.5-1 percentage point jump from mediocre steal creator (1.5% - 104th best in the W in ‘24) to the W’s top 30. Of course, there’s no true science to generating steals, but if you look at the league leaders year after year, there’s a common denominator that the vast majority of the names near the top are considered strong defensive players. Based on her physical profile, basketball IQ and effort levels on that end of the floor, it feels relatively safe to place that label on Onyenwere as well.
As for assists, I wouldn’t necessarily expect a huge jump (especially since the 3rd pick in April’s draft could be another ball handler and Courtney Vandersloot has already signed), but it still feels like there was meat left on the bone after she finished only 125th in the WNBA in assist percentage and 105th in assists per game a year ago.
The key to generating more assists for Onyenwere will be attacking off the dribble regularly and distributing off of those drives as defenses collapse. With her length and aforementioned efficiency at the rim, opponents have to respect her attacks, and the more threes she can hit, the more hard closeouts she’ll have the chance to go by off the bounce. No matter how these scenarios are created, they’re good ones to create kick-outs (or dump offs to Reese and Cardoso on the opposite block) from, and Onyenwere figures to be one of the players whose assists numbers profit most if Jeff Pagliocca can add more shooting to the roster in the coming years.
Will she remain a starter? (And should she want to?)
This question is a difficult one to answer before April’s draft as it’s unclear what profile(s) of player the Sky will add at three and ten, but there’s decent odds—for now—that Onyenwere will enter April’s training camp with a reasonable chance to be the starting small forward in Chicago next season. Her game is perfect for virtually everything Tyler Marsh is expected to want to do as a head coach, and her defensive effort level means she can fit into most any line-up even without standout numbers in any one category.
However, in the end, the success of this deal for Onyenwere and the Sky may ultimately be easily judged by the answers to these two questions:
Does Onyenwere’s play justify her staying in the starting line-up even as the Sky’s roster improves in 2025 and beyond?
Can she be the impact role player she was in a sometimes limited bench role for the 2024 Sky if she doesn’t continue to start?
Luckily, the Sky don’t have to worry about Onyenwere’s attitude—especially when it comes to answering question two. After a year where she saw starts, DNPs and everything in between, it’s clear Onyenwere can stay ready and won’t turn into a locker room cancer in the event she does drop out of the first five. Thus, the natural question is what impact starting or coming off of the bench has on her on-court performance. Here’s the 2024 data which, honestly, doesn’t provide much actionable insight.
The only noticeable changes in Onyenwere’s numbers are easily attributed to the circumstances of the team as her higher rebounding figures as a starter come in part from a heightened average of 5 boards per 36 in the 6 games Reese missed at the end of last season and her strong three-point mark as a reserve came on low volume (only 15 total attempts).
Regardless, she has the potential to be a plus contributor with the framework of a starting five Chicago has entering the first year of Marsh’s tenure in Chicago. She’s a positive shooter, adds length alongside Chicago’s already imposing starting front court pair, can take on difficult match-ups on the perimeter thanks to her agility and allows Marsh to switch more aggressively as she’s strong enough to handle herself against most WNBA 4s. Off the bench, it’s hard to say how she complements the Sky roster as much of that bench group is yet to be brought in, but she’ll always be valuable as an energetic spark and can add even more offensive pop if she can get back to scoring regularly off the dribble and, especially, in the mid-range.
Irrespective of where she ends up in the rotation, Onyenwere offers many of the traits that are required of modern 3-and-D prototypes—which have quickly gone from highly coveted to nearly essential for wing players in the W and the NBA. Ultimately, those traits (and the aforementioned professionalism and attitude) are a big part of the reason the Sky have decided to invest in a new contract with the talented twenty-five year old even as the rest of the 2025 roster takes shape.