The Chicago Sky\u2019s season died a multitude of deaths on its way to one of the worst records in the WNBA for the second straight year. The Sky\u2019s season was effectively over when the front office botched the 2025 draft in spectacular fashion, when it made 36-year-old point guard Courtney Vandersloot their big free agent addition, again when Vandersloot suffered a season-ending torn ACL in early June, and once more when Angel Reese got hurt just before the All-Star break, leading to a 1-9 stretch in her absence that saw the team lose by an average of 21.7 points per game.<\/p>\n
The Sky\u2019s season has been over for a long time, but leave it to Reese to find some intrigue in playing out the string. With five games on the schedule, Reese spoke with Chicago Tribune ace reporter Julia Poe about the Sky\u2019s terrible, horrible, no good season<\/a>, and a future that looks even bleaker. Reese provided the honesty fans supposedly crave from athletes, and she told no lies in dissecting the micro and macro problems facing the franchise.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not settling for the same s\u2212\u2212\u2212 we did this year,\u201d Reese said to the Tribune on the team\u2019s lousy offseason. \u201cWe have to get good players. We have to get great players. That\u2019s a non-negotiable for me.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m willing and wanting to play with the best. And however I can help to get the best here, that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do this offseason. So it\u2019s going to be very, very important this offseason to make sure we attract the best of the best because we can\u2019t settle for what we have this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Reese kept going. She said \u201cWe can\u2019t rely on Courtney to come back at the age that she\u2019s at,\u201d when talking about how to fix the team\u2019s point guard problems for next year. She implored head coach Tyler Marsh to coach the team harder, and pointed to the Golden State Valkyries\u2019 defensive intensity and team-wide competence in their first year as an expansion club to show that a more competitive present is possible. She yearned for a major free agent addition but said \u201cI don\u2019t know what will attract that,\u201d nodding to the Sky\u2019s status as a small market stand-in despite being located in the country\u2019s third biggest market.<\/p>\n Reese\u2019s words have predictably caused an uproar. Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports (who was on the Sky beat last season) followed by reporting teammates were unhappy with Reese\u2019s direct remarks<\/a>. Honesty has a way of hurting some feelings, and Reese already apologized<\/a> for her remarks following Wednesday night\u2019s blowout win over the Connecticut Sun for the Sky\u2019s most lopsided victory of the season.<\/p>\n Reasonable minds can argue about whether this is a \u201cbad look\u201d for Reese from a publicity standpoint. What can\u2019t be debated is that Reese was spot-on about the Sky\u2019s dire outlook thanks to epic mismanagement from the front office and a broke boy ownership group.<\/p>\n