Quick Three: Sky Deal #3 Pick in the WNBA Draft for Ariel Atkins
Chicago adds their long-coveted two guard from the Mystics but parts with a lottery pick and a highly-valuable 2027 swap in the process.
The Sky’s persistent links to a two-guard this offseason quieted down somewhat after the team acquired Kia Nurse in free agency but quickly came back to life on Sunday evening when GM Jeff Pagliocca finally pulled the trigger and parted with the third pick in April’s draft. In the process, he added a locked-in back court starter alongside Courtney Vandersloot: two-time All Star Ariel Atkins. Let’s dive into what the addition of the 2021 Olympic Gold medallist will bring to Chicago plus what the trade means for the Sky’s plans in 2025 and beyond.
1. Chicago is all in on winning in 2025.
Atkins’ resume, of course, speaks for itself. After a decorated career at Texas, the 5’8” guard hit the ground running quickly after going 7th in the 2018 draft and started all 9 of the Mystics’ playoff games the following season as the franchise won its first WNBA title. In the years since, Atkins grabbed the aforementioned All-Star nods in 2021 and 2022 while winning Gold with the national team in Tokyo and Sydney during both of those seasons. And while 2023 saw injury cost her time and impact her productivity, she quickly returned to her typical level a season ago—starting all 40 games and averaging 14.9 PPG on 44/36/85 splits.
On the surface, there’s very little not to like about that player profile, and a dive deeper into her tape and resume won’t change that impression. Atkins is a high-end defender (5 All-Defense selections in 7 seasons), continues to improve as a creator (career-best 5 assists per 100 possessions in ‘24), and grades out highly in virtually every advanced metric used in the modern game. So, with that in mind, it’s easy to see why the Sky would want to go all in on Atkins as their shooting guard to complement Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso in the long term. While some of the Sky’s other arrivals like Nurse (32.4% career 3PT) and Vandersloot (33.7%) are only solid three-point threats, Atkins will absolutely space the floor for a paint-heavy team—with the impact not only important for the bigs but for the other perimeter players who may have more time and space to trend towards their own career-highs from deep if Atkins can continue with the form she’s shown for the majority of her 7 professional seasons.
At the same time, Atkins will be a great complement to the defensive identity that Reese, Cardoso, Rebecca Allen and Michaela Onyenwere will bring to the Sky’s 2025 roster. She’s capable of comfortably taking on the league’s top players on the perimeter, and the presence of those other names (who offer some extra length at the point of attack) could see Atkins on a team’s second or third option on a pretty regular basis. If that’s the case, she’s more than qualified to freeze that player out of the game—hurling more pressure back on the first option who’s already facing a lengthy Allen (6’2”) or Onyenwere (6’0”). In the case of a shiftier player, Atkins gives the Sky a different profile of player from either of those two or Nurse, and she’s a definite upgrade on Vandersloot’s point of attack defense.
The aforementioned playmaking abilities (and occasional though inconsistent ability to create her own shot) will allow Tyler Marsh to experiment with line-ups throughout the year—with the potential to sit Vandersloot as match-ups dictate and roll out line-ups with four of the aforementioned 5 players that stand 6’0” or taller. Atkins, in those line-ups, will take on a very different role but should be up to the task.
2. More big risks created for the future.
So far, Jeff Pagliocca seems to have gotten the best of many of his big swings, but the risks the Sky’s GM has taken could also come back to bite him and the franchise heavily in the future—with this deal proving no different. The trade that brought Angel Reese to the Sky was, for a myriad of obvious reasons, hailed as a big victory, but the pick swap Chicago still owes to the Lynx in next year’s draft (for moving up just one spot) could yet massively harm the team’s ability to build around Reese in a cost-controlled manner. Similarly, this deal—in addition to the #3 pick in April’s draft (more on that in a second)—sends swap rights on the Sky’s 2027 first-round pick to the Mystics.
In case you weren’t aware, USC G JuJu Watkins will be draft eligible in ‘27, and there’s a convincing argument to be made that the first pick in that draft could be the single-most valuable pick in league history given the league-altering potential the possible National Player of the Year offers. Giving away a swap in that draft—almost as a throw in—seems completely unnecessary. If the Mystics—a team who owns their own pick in 2026 and has every incentive to tank this season and land a top pick—were willing to walk away from this trade over that swap, the Sky should’ve let them do it. The #3 pick in this draft represents huge value for a soon-to-be free agent, and I struggle to think Washington would’ve left negotiations entirely over the extra pick swap.
Of course, if the Sky can build in the way they want to ahead of the 2026 season, this may end up being a non-factor. The swap will only convey if Chicago ends up with a higher pick, and Pagliocca has valid reasons to believe that his team has the framework to finish above the Mystics. That being said, 2026 is one big unknown league wide given the amount of players on expiring contracts this season, and there’s every chance that the 2027 draft order ends up quite jumbled as a result. If for whatever reason the Sky’s 2026 roster ends up struggling to support Reese and Cardoso in their third season or an untimely injury or two bumps Chicago down the standings, that swap could cost the Sky their shot to select Watkins and secure one of the highest-potential young cores the W has ever seen. It’s a remote possibility, but the fact it is remote should underline why Pagliocca had all the leverage to talk the Mystics out of getting that pick swap in the deal.
On top of that, Atkins is also part of the aforementioned pool of impending free agents. Even with Atkins, this isn’t a team with realistic title chances in 2025, and the potential she could bolt after just one season could make losing any assets a pretty unnecessary gamble. For Pagliocca, Marsh and their colleagues in the Chicago front office, the thought process has to be selling Atkins (who will turn 29 during the 2025 season) on signing an extension that sees her become one of the key pieces in the team’s new era. Even then, I question how high on the (massive) list of free agents to be Atkins will rank and whether she—in spite of all of her proven talent—is a good enough player to swing the Sky’s position to a huge degree unless flanked by other free agent arrivals next winter.
3. And what about the #3 pick?
I jumped to the 2027 pick because it speaks to a consistent pattern with some of the moves Pagliocca has made (and weirdly, unlike his predecessor, not gotten much flack for) in his year-plus on the job, but the movement of a lottery pick in this year’s draft probably strikes a stronger chord with much of the Sky fanbase.
After early hopes for Olivia Miles arriving as Chicago’s point guard of the future were progressively cooled by her strong play (and the slight drop of Kiki Iriafen’s draft stock) during the college season, it seemed like her Notre Dame teammate Sonia Citron was putting herself in the frame to be the selection. Elsewhere, the “best available” crowd called for grabbing brilliant French front court talent Dominique Malonga while a trade with win-now Seattle to get the second pick (and, thus, Miles) also still seemed feasible.
Instead, the Sky moved off what would’ve been a cost-controlled player on the first year of a four-year contract for Atkins whose 2025 price point is irrelevant given the team’s favorable cap position but, inevitably, will be semi-expensive to extend next offseason. If Chicago are as “all-in” on winning in 2026 as gambling with their pick in the following draft suggests, they’ll be after a number of high-profile free agents and Atkins—a great but not “Tier 1” player—could get lost in the shuffle as a result.
And therein lies the obvious, surface level risk with this deal. If Atkins doesn’t return to Chicago in 2026 for any reason, the Sky have given up the chance to add a player like Citron or Malonga on a team-friendly deal throughout the rest of the advantageous rookie deals that Cardoso and Reese have through 2027. An extra role player (at worst) on a deal at 70-80k could offer the cap flexibility that marks the difference between landing a proven (read expensive) veteran role player and a less reliable one to round out future rosters. Even with expansion slowly arriving, WNBA rosters are still small and highly competitive, and those thin margins between a good and great role player can easily decide a critical playoff game or series. For now, the Sky’s roster is cheap enough to make that type of discussion irrelevant, but things could change quickly ahead of the 2026 season and Atkins—given her resume—will also likely ask for a hefty deal of her own that a 2025 rookie won’t even be eligible to receive until 2029.