The Sky are not in a good spot heading into the back half of the season.
They’re back practicing at UIC after failing to deliver on their promise of moving into a new practice facility this year. And according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, they have a 1.8% chance of making the playoffs — this despite carrying a win-now roster.
But the Sky, who returned from the All-Star break with three practices before their next game, aren’t counting themselves out.
“There’s a lot of teams clamoring for that seventh-eight spot,” coach Tyler Marsh said. “We have a long home stretch coming. We want to be present, we want to take advantage of what’s in front of us and treat this second part of the season as a new season.”
The “new” season really will have to look nothing like the old one. Think 12 or 13 wins in their final 17 games.
Reasons to believe in such an epic surge do exist — it’s why their odds aren’t zero.
First is health: Wing DiJonai Carrington, an All-Defense-caliber player, appears close to returning, and Courtney Vandersloot and Azurá Stevens are already back. Though that good news is slightly undercut by the absence of Skylar Diggins, their leading scorer, whom Marsh described as “week to week” with a knee injury.
Then there’s the reality that the Sky have been competitive with even the league’s best teams.
Given the size of the hole they’ve dug, though, their own success won’t be enough. They also need help from elsewhere around the league.
Specifically, they need a major collapse from the Mystics, who have been surprisingly good and currently hold the eighth and final playoff spot.
Why might Washington unravel now? The Mystics’ philosophy is to build slowly through the draft, so there’s always a chance they clip their own playoff odds by trading a productive veteran for future assets — as they did last year when they sent Brittney Sykes to the Storm.
The Sky better hope and pray they do the same this year.
Because if both teams stay on their current trajectories, the damage could extend well beyond this season.
The Sky would likely owe the Mystics a top-four draft pick in a class with JuJu Watkins, Madison Booker, Hannah Hidalgo and Mikaylah Williams, receiving a middle-of-the-round pick in return. That’s the rest of the bill from the Ariel Atkins trade last season.
But Chicago can only control what’s in front of them, and the immediate focus is learning how to close games.
The Sky are a dreadful 4-11 in clutch situations. (The Mystics, by comparison, are an impressive 11-6.) What is it going to take for Chicago to get over that hump?
“Staying disciplined,” rookie guard Sydney Taylor said. “Most of [our losses] were due to foul calls and bad fouls on our part.”
The Sky have made nearly every kind of mistake imaginable down the stretch of games: fouling 3-point shooters, missing wide-open layups and giving up straight-line drives. But the common thread has been an inability to convert. The Sky are shooting just 39.5% in those critical moments.
Fixing that might require rethinking the pecking order. The Sky typically default to the point guard pick-and-roll when they need a late bucket, which hasn’t always worked.
Here’s a new plan for end-of-game situations: Give Taylor the ball.
The rookie dynamo has already hit two clutch shots since moving into the starting lineup, though the Sky ended up blowing both games. Marsh acknowledged she needs to be featured more, noting that Taylor’s shot creation ranks among the best in the league.
“We want to put her in those positions,” Marsh said. “We’ll continue to find opportunities for her to do that for us.”
So that’s the rough spot the Sky find themselves in: long odds, and a rookie as their best hope of beating them.
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