{"id":374192,"date":"2025-12-28T14:23:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T14:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374192\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T14:23:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T14:23:34","slug":"angel-reese-and-the-sky-are-ready-to-end-this-dismal-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374192\/","title":{"rendered":"Angel Reese And The Sky Are Ready To End This Dismal Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Sky are a bad team with dim prospects and a lot of work to do to contend for WNBA championships again. Their biggest star, Angel Reese, implied as much in a recent interview with the\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/a>\u00a0where she reflected on the team\u2019s second straight season outside the playoffs and\u00a0discussed the team\u2019s plans in free agency. \u201cI\u2019m not settling for the same shit we did this year,\u201d Reese told the Tribune\u2019s Julia Poe, in an article published last Wednesday. \u201cWe have to get good players. We have to get great players. That\u2019s a non-negotiable for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting great players has been a tall order for the Sky lately. Turned off by the team\u2019s lagging facilities and barebones staff, the league\u2019s superstars have looked to other teams when making trade requests and in free agency. Nor has the front office done well to make the value signings and draft picks that non-destination teams must hit on to survive. This offseason, the Sky traded this year’s third overall pick to the rebuilding Mystics for veteran guard Ariel Atkins, who will be a free agent when the season ends. The Mystics used the pick to draft Sonia Citron, who was named an All-Star in her rookie season; will likely be a unanimous selection to the All-Rookie team; and, crucially, will be under team control for another three seasons. In the Atkins deal, the Sky also gave the Mystics swap rights to their first-round pick in the 2027 draft, which projects to be one of the most talented classes in recent memory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ostensibly a win-now move, the trade didn\u2019t have the intended effect. The Sky did not win now. They will not make the playoffs this year. They currently have the league\u2019s second-worst record. If the team\u2019s franchise star wanted to make the case that the Sky are not positioned to succeed anytime soon, all available evidence would support her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her teammates might not. The Sky announced last Friday that Reese would be suspended for the first half of Sunday’s Sky-Aces game \u201cbecause of statements detrimental to the team.\u201d Reese\u2019s quotes didn\u2019t scan as obviously offensive\u2014and the\u00a0Tribune\u00a0story isn\u2019t packaged like some bombshell report\u2014but a less generous\u00a0followup report from Front Office Sports\u2019 Annie Costabile<\/a>, who covered the Sky for the\u00a0Chicago Sun-Times\u00a0before this season, showed how the comments might be viewed in a slightly different light. \u201cAngel Reese Faces Uncertain Future In Chicago After Publicly Torching Teammates,\u201d the FOS headline read. Costabile reported that \u201cthe entire team has seen Reese\u2019s comments, and are unhappy with the direct attacks,\u201d and that the players planned to address Reese in a team meeting.\u00a0Sky coach Tyler Marsh said the suspension was \u201cfrom the top down as an organizational decision.\u201d Alissa Hirsh of the\u00a0Sun-Times<\/a>\u00a0reported that Atkins said \u201cownership handled it how they see fit\u201d when she was asked about the suspension, which might suggest that the decision came from above Marsh.<\/p>\n

Poe\u2019s article did mention some players by name, but the offending statements aren\u2019t all in direct quotes, so it\u2019s hard to tell exactly how much torching Reese did:<\/p>\n

While praising [Courtney] Vandersloot\u2019s abilities and leadership, Reese balked at the prospect of building the roster around a point guard attempting to return from an ACL tear at age 36. And she doesn\u2019t believe backup options such as Banham or Van Lith are better prepared to carry the mantle on a playoff team.<\/p>\n

Poe also wrote that Reese \u201cbelieves there are only two guarantees on the 2026 Sky roster: herself and [Kamilla] Cardoso.\u201d Not obviously offensive, again\u2014the two of them are among the four players under contract with the Sky next season. (The other two are rookies Hailey Van Lith and Maddy Westbeld, neither of whom has yet proven to be a WNBA starter.) But Poe noted that the team hopes to re-sign some veterans from this year\u2019s team, and it could read like Reese didn\u2019t see any future with them.<\/p>\n

The article did include a quote from Reese on Courtney Vandersloot, whose ACL tear in June left the team without a true point guard for most of the season. As a result, Reese has spent time in a slightly different point forward role this year. She told Poe that shoring up the point guard position was her biggest concern going into the offseason. \u201cWe can\u2019t rely on Courtney to come back at the age that she\u2019s at. I know she\u2019ll be a great asset for us, but we can\u2019t rely on that,\u201d Reese said. \u201cWe need someone probably a little younger with some experience, somebody who\u2019s been playing the game and is willing to compete for a championship and has done it before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vandersloot won the 2021 WNBA championship in her first stint with the Sky, but will be 37 at the start of the next WNBA season and had slowed down in recent seasons, coming off the bench for the New York Liberty during the playoffs last year. Reese\u2019s evaluation was probably not wrong.<\/p>\n

After the Tribune article came out, Reese said she felt her comments had been taken out of context. \u201cI didn\u2019t intentionally mean to put down my teammates because they\u2019ve been through this with me throughout the whole season,\u201d she told reporters<\/a> after the Sky beat the Connecticut Sun in Chicago last Wednesday. \u201cThey\u2019ve busted their ass just like I busted my ass. They showed up through thick and thin with me when nobody could see anything. I would apologize to my teammates, which I already have, about the article and how it was misconstrued.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reese took shots in warmups before Sunday night\u2019s game in Vegas, but ended up not playing at all in the 80-66 loss. At halftime, Sky PR sent out an update saying that Reese had been ruled out of the second half with a back injury. After the All-Star break, she missed 10 games with a similar injury before returning to play on Aug. 19. The Sky were 1-9 in those 10 games. Only two more to go.<\/p>\n

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