Quick Three: Sky Trade Pick 8 & Koné to Lynx for Milić + WNBA Draft's 7th Slot
The Sky make a big swing to move up one spot in Monday night's draft.
For a moment, it seemed like the dust had settled after a hectic period that started with the NCAA Tournament in March and ended with an instant classic EuroLeague semifinal on Friday afternoon. With draft scouting done and the vast majority of the meaningful overseas basketball in the rearview, all the Sky could do was sit and wait for Monday night’s draft to begin. Instead, Chicago took a huge swing on Sunday morning and made a deal that has significant potential for reward but also involves huge risk. Let’s dive into the terms of the trade and what it means for Monday’s draft and beyond.
Terms of the Deal
Per the Sun-Times’ Annie Costabile, the terms of the deal are as follows:
Chicago Receives:
Minnesota’s 2024 1st Round Pick (7th overall), Nikolina Milić
Minnesota Receives:
Atlanta’s 2024 1st Round Pick (8th overall — acquired from LA in the Li Yueru trade), 2025 2nd round pick (acquired from NY in the Rebekah Gardner trade), 2026 1st round pick swap, Sika Koné
1. The Pick Swap(s)
Let’s start with the obvious headline—the Sky moving up from 8th to 7th in the draft. Given the depth of this draft, it’s obvious why the Sky would want to make a move upwards. I see a clear six-player group at the top of the draft who have seperated themselves from everyone else in the next tier (Clark, Brink, Jackson, Reese, Cardoso and Edwards). Thus, picking at eighth leaves any team in a very vulnerable position. Not only do you not get one of those six, you don’t even get first choice from the ‘best of the rest’ group that is likely to follow starting at 7. Yet, with everything I’ve just said, it seems a bizarre choice to move only to the 7th pick. Being first in line to choose from the second tier is great, but it’s not worth giving up a load of other assets in the process. Regardless of what the other compensation was to move up (and I’ll get to that shortly), this trade only makes sense if one of the following is true:
The Sky believe that a 7th player belongs in the “top tier” I mention above.
The Sky believe that one of the players from the “next tier” goes in the top 6.
The players I most often seen floated amongst the six I listed above in mock drafts are Ohio State’s Jacy Sheldon, Utah’s Alissa Pili and international prospect Nyadiew Puoch. If I’m interpreting the trade correctly, the Sky feel one of these players will satisfy either #1 or #2 above. Otherwise, this swap doesn’t move the needle much for the Sky. No matter the case, it would’ve made more sense for this trade to be agreed only ‘in principle’ until the draft is under way. Without any idea what will happen with five of the six picks in front of them, Chicago is bundling a lot of extra risk into this deal by making it now.
With all that risk accounted for, it’s very puzzling to also see a 2026 first-round pick swap included in this deal. If we briefly look at the Lynx’s future contracts, each of Kayla McBride, Napheesa Collier, Alanna Smith and Courtney Williams has a contract through the end of the 2025 season. Barring a series of big trades that move a few of those players out, this Lynx team is not going to be bad a couple of seasons from now. There’s an argument that the roster they’ve built doesn’t have quiet enough firepower to contend with the teams at the top end—especially Las Vegas—but there’s no reason to think Cheryl Reeve and company will be picking in the lottery either. Only time will tell, but the early odds slant heavily towards the Lynx being able to use this swap to move up to the Sky’s pick—rather than having to stay put because Chicago is picking below. The 2025 second round pick is relatively inconsequential as it will likely fall somewhere in the mid-to-late 20’s and second-rounders usually struggle to make WNBA rosters anyways.
2. The Player Swap
Milić is a talented player, but she doesn’t represent much of an asset for the Sky. She plans to sit out the 2024 season and, thus, per the terms of the CBA, the Sky will have exclusive negotiating rights with Milić whenever she decides to return to the W as she’ll be considered a “Suspended--Contract Expired” status player. But, don’t be surprised if Milić never suits up for the Sky. After this Summer’s Olympics, EuroBasket follows next summer and she’ll likely want to represent Serbia again at that tournament—meaning a 2025 return is likely off the table. By the time the 2026 season rolls around, Milić will be 32. If the Sky have made significant progress with their rebuild, she could slot in as a valuable bench piece at that time, but it wouldn’t be shocking to see her moved or released in favor of giving younger players opportunities (like Astou Ndour-Fall was this offseason).
As for the outbound player, it’s no secret that Sika Koné has a tremendous amount of potential. Depending on how the first six picks fall, this may not be directly applicable, but Koné is probably more impressive as a prospect than any of the players in the second tier that, theoretically, will start going off the board at 7. At 21 years old, she’s also younger than almost any player in this draft class (with the exception of Puoch). This could be a case of Teresa Weatherspoon and Jeff Pagliocca looking at the young Malian’s game and thinking they don’t have the time and bandwidth to refine her into the player she can be, but I’m not seeing any player who will be available at seven that won’t require a similar amount of patience and development. Given both coach and GM have such a heavy background in player development, I’m surprised to see Koné dealt and not developed further as part of the roster overhaul.
As a reminder, the Sky had Koné on a non-guaranteed rookie-scale (essentially league minimum) deal for both 2024 and 2025—with an option to extend for 2026 at another number at or near the minimum. In other words, there’s little to no salary cap benefits in 2024 or beyond gained by dealing Koné either.
3. The Trade as a Whole
When you put all the pieces together, this trade doesn’t make much sense for the Sky. In fact, if you think back on the deals Chicago made to get here, this deal is even more head-scratching. To acquire the 8th pick, the Sky sent Julie Allemand and Li Yueru to Los Angeles. For New York’s 2025 second-rounder (and one further second-rounder), the Sky gave up Rebekah Gardner. Thus, the Sky essentially gave up all three of those players plus Koné and the likely 2026 pick swap just to move up one slot in this year’s draft. Despite moving all these assets, the Sky still have no guarantee they’ll even get the player they want at 7. And even if things do fall the way the Sky are hoping and their player makes it to 7, are they absolutely certain that player wasn’t going to make it to 8?
The Lynx, as mentioned, already have a strong roster with very few obvious holes. We’ll never know for sure, but it’s possible they could’ve been planning to use this pick to stash Elizabeth Kitley (who will miss 2024 due to injury) or a foreign prospect like Isobel Borlase (who is just 19) for the future. If it was the Mystics or Sparks they were trading with, Chicago could be more certain they were competing for similar players, but the same can’t be said for the Lynx. We won’t know until tomorrow night (and Pagliocca certainly has more intel on other teams’ plans than me), but it’s very possible that—if Koné and Yueru were in this draft class with their current strengths and weaknesses—the Sky would choose to pick them over whoever they wind up with at 7. That’s obviously not a fair comparison as it ventures far, far away from reality, but it’s important food for thought.
If the Sky walk away from this draft with a combo like Rickea Jackson and Angel Reese, the majority of the fanbase will likely be very happy with this move and justifiably so. However, I still struggle to wrap my head around including both Koné and the 2026 pick-swap in this deal because of the cycle it puts the Sky in over the next few years. If the Sky’s rookies struggle in 2024 (as is to be expected to a certain degree), Chicago will owe their 2025 draft pick to Dallas—who will send back a pick somewhere in the mid-to-late first-round. That likely means no Paige Bueckers, no Aneesah Morrow and no Kiki Iriafen. Next winter’s free-agency class has some exciting names, but it’s difficult to see how the Sky are attracting those names with (1) the still unresolved facilities issue and (2) a young roster that will presumably be far away from title contention.
If one of the 2024 first-rounders hits the ground running and the Sky make big progress on their new practice facility, it’s possible that all of that and the allure of playing for Weatherspoon draws in a big name, but that’s a lot of ‘ifs’. I’d argue an equally likely scenario is the Sky have lukewarm results in free agency and head into 2025 hoping for more development from this year’s picks and whoever they can add with the selection that Dallas sends them. In the second year of the Weatherspoon and Pagliocca era, that’s not a bad place to be. The problem? They’d be on course to do all of the same things again the next offseason. If the Sky are still a lottery team, they’ll again have to forfeit that pick. This time that means no Lauren Betts, Ashlyn Watkins, Kiki Rice or whoever else winds up at the top end of the 2026 draft.
Pagliocca received a lot of (deserved) credit from Sky fans after the Copper and Yueru trades for helping steadily rebuild the team’s draft capital. Yet, a couple of months later, the Sky seem to have reversed course and mortgaged another important future asset for a potential hit in the short term. Of course, there is also a scenario where this all pans out nicely. Koné and Yueru never fully grow into their huge potential, one of the elite prospects makes it to the Sky at 7, the team makes big strides over the next two years and the Lynx end up not wanting to swap in 2026 anyways. If all of that comes to fruition, this will look like a perfectly logical deal. Unfortunately for Jeff Pagliocca and GMs everywhere, taking huge risks like this is sometimes what separates the geniuses who build dynasties from the rash risk-takers that end up looking for another job.
Only time will tell which ends up being Pagliocca’s story, but I feel he’s stacked the deck heavily against this being a home run deal for the Sky.