Quick Three: Storm 95 Sky 57
Chicago hammered at home with as many as four starters out and left looking for answers before Sunday's meeting with Indiana.
Once again shorthanded, the Sky suffered another blowout loss Thursday night—this time at the hands of the Storm. Much like last week’s defeat to the Dream, it followed a familiar script: undermanned, outmatched, and offering little to take away on the surface. Still, even in a game where expectations were tempered by limited personnel, let’s explore a few things worth unpacking.
1. Sky Defense Lacks Connection
With Angel Reese, Ariel Atkins, and Michaela Onyenwere all out, the Sky were always going to face defensive challenges. Any team missing its most consistent point-of-attack defender (Atkins), its highest-energy defender (Onyenwere), and a premier—if inconsistent—post defender (Reese) is bound to struggle. Add in the unfamiliar lineup combinations that come with so many absences, and it’s no surprise the team’s defensive communication suffered—a recipe for things to quickly unravel. Still, the players who were available shouldn’t be let entirely off the hook. Aside from Maddy Westbeld (8.9 MPG entering the night) and recent arrival Marquesha Davis, everyone who saw non-garbage-time minutes tonight averages double-digit minutes on the season. A complete breakdown in communication simply shouldn’t be the standard.
The Sky’s bench depth has rightfully earned occasional praise this season—so in many respects, the absences alone don’t excuse the poor defensive connectivity. The truth is, even with the three missing players—and Courtney Vandersloot—on the floor earlier in the year, communication hasn’t been a strength for this group. As a result, their team defense remains wildly inconsistent, reflected clearly in their 108.6 defensive rating—second-worst in the WNBA. That kind of ongoing breakdown becomes harder to justify with each passing week. This roster may be anchored by a young core, but it also includes plenty of veteran experience—enough, at least, to expect a higher baseline of defensive cohesion.
Granted, some of that experience comes from players—Rachel Banham, for example—who simply aren’t strong defenders. But the Sky’s biggest issues on that end go beyond individual one-on-one struggles. While breakdowns in isolation do happen, they don’t appear to be the primary reason for the team’s defensive woes. Instead, the real damage shows up in areas like transition matchups, pick-and-roll coverage, and weak-side help rotations—problems that point directly to lapses in team defense, communication, and at times, effort. With most of the rotation boasting four or more years of WNBA experience—and veterans like Banham and Rebecca Allen nearing a decade in the league—it’s hard to justify the persistent lack of cohesion. This roster was never built to be a defensive powerhouse, and 24 games into their first season together, some chemistry issues are understandable. Still, it’s fair to say that everyone involved likely expected more by now.
A healthy Reese and, especially, Atkins moves the needle in terms of defensive quality, but the group that played tonight should have every chance to maintain a decent standard from a togetherness perspective—something they struggled to do as Seattle coasted to 36 paint points on 62% shooting in just three quarters (with the fourth largely reduced to garbage time).
2. Struggle for Variety Dooms Offense
While quality is hard to compensate for at the defensive end, it’s virtually impossible to replace on the offensive end—with the Sky suffering that fate once again tonight. Kamilla Cardoso (13 pts, 5/8 FG) and Elizabeth Williams (11, 5/8) actually had solid performances, but Chicago struggled to put much of anything else together at the offensive end. They finished with 34/19/73 splits—adding just 4 fast-break points and 8 points off of turnovers to 11 second chance points. In many ways, this continues the Sky’s trend of struggling to score in different “hustle” areas this season. Their second-chance scoring (11.8, 3rd in the W), of course, remains strong—mostly on account of their exceptional offensive rebounding numbers—but they’re well off the mark in points off of turnovers (11.3, fewest in the W) and fast-break scoring (9.9, third fewest).
Chicago was far from exceptional in those categories a season ago, but they were more clearly a high-energy team and finished middle of the pack in both metrics—amounting to an additional 3.6 PPG total as a result. For a team that’s last in the WNBA in scoring (72.5 PPG) in the month of July, squeezing every possible point out of each game is critical and failing to capitalize on any additional areas (again, second chance aside) with a high degree of regularity makes that very difficult. The outright shooting splits and overall success of the offense, of course, are not going to change that much in a positive direction without Reese and Atkins, but—again—these “hustle” numbers feel far more controllable for any players that are getting time at this level.
3. What Now for Chicago?
I’ve tried to bury the “why trade the third pick” question as much as possible this season because, in truth, it becomes a tired refrain if you throw it out after every loss. Yet, after tonight’s defeat, it’s worth revisiting just how careless the decision to push chips in last offseason really was. With 20 games left in the ‘25 season, the Sky (7-17) sit level with Dallas (7-17) and just above Connecticut (3-20) at the bottom of the standings. Thanks to the Marina Mabrey trade, the Sky will end up with a lottery pick anyways (in spite of dealing their own ‘26 first to Minnesota), but it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that this will be a playoff team. Even if the Sky had stayed healthy, they look—at best—a fringe playoff team that gains very little by adding Atkins to the fold this season.
There’s still some logic in adding a functional player to the offense to better understand where you are with Reese and Cardoso and, at times this year, Atkins’ presence has actually helped to show what both players can look like in a healthy offense. Regardless, the issue is that GM Jeff Pagliocca gambled a future asset to run this season as a strengthened proof of concept—with anyone in their right mind recognizing that the “concept” in question was a borderline playoff team rather than a title contender. So, what if the Sky decide to offer Atkins a huge contract this offseason in order to bring her back next season? Will one further year of seasoning make this roster a playoff lock? An outing like tonight, even with the absences and related overextension of players like Kia Nurse (5 pts, 2/11 FG) into roles they’re not meant to play, shows that the answer is no—barring significant changes to the composition of the rest of the roster.
The positive moments the Sky have had in July—especially the superb run of play Reese was on before her injury—suggest that brighter times are ahead, but there’s also a need for practicality and significant patience to reach the ideal future state. In lacking both with their choices last offseason, Chicago’s front office has soured the development process for this team and made the next 12-24 months very complicated ones to navigate from a players 3-12 perspective (as, in fairness, Reese and Cardoso remain solid building blocks).