{"id":584120,"date":"2026-04-14T18:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/584120\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T18:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:20:11","slug":"azura-stevens-returns-to-chicago-where-the-fit-and-the-money-made-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/584120\/","title":{"rendered":"Azur\u00e1 Stevens returns to Chicago, where the fit \u2014 and the money \u2014 made sense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk to any key piece of the Sky\u2019s<\/a> 2021 championship team and they\u2019ll tell you Chicago is home. For some \u2014 Candace Parker, Allie Quigley \u2014 that\u2019s partly because they grew up in the area. For others, it was the experience: the bond of continuity and shared success.<\/p>\n

Count Azur\u00e1 Stevens among that second group. She was a key contributor to the 2021 run, and since then she\u2019s taken her game to another level.<\/p>\n

She averaged a career-high 12.8 points and 8.0 rebounds with the Sparks last season, shooting an impressive 38% from three.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s evolved into a rarity in the WNBA: a 6-6 forward who can shoot lights out from deep. That combination, even in a free agency period when nearly every star was on the market, made Stevens a prize.<\/p>\n

The Sky won her \u2014 despite coming off a 10-34 season and missing the playoffs since 2023.<\/p>\n

So what brought her back to Chicago?<\/p>\n

Familiarity was part of it. She wanted another chance to play alongside Courtney Vandersloot, arguably the best player in Sky history and one of Stevens\u2019 good friends. The move also brings her nearer to family in North Carolina, where she grew up.<\/p>\n

But Stevens also saw a path to winning here. She was impressed by the team\u2019s offseason moves, landing All-WNBA point guard Skylar Diggins, plus Rickea Jackson and DiJonai Carrington. She\u2019s heard nothing but good things about Tyler Marsh, entering his second season as head coach. And she believes she\u2019ll complement 6-7 center Kamilla Cardoso, the Sky\u2019s young centerpiece.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can stretch the floor, and obviously she\u2019s great down low, so I think we\u2019re going to play off each other very well,\u201d Stevens said at an introductory news conference on Monday.<\/p>\n

That fit was central to the pitch. Marsh wants to play fast, with more spacing \u2014 meaning bigs get the green light to launch threes. Stevens will fit right in.<\/p>\n

The contract didn\u2019t hurt either. She signed a three-year deal worth $3.15 million, the richest on the Sky\u2019s current roster.<\/p>\n

Stevens was open about that being part of the appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to get paid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Sky could afford it. Unlike the Liberty or the Aces, they don\u2019t have a superstar or a \u201cBig 3″ eating up cap space. Stevens\u2019 deal was a smart use of it. She hasn\u2019t quite cracked the All-Star tier yet, but she\u2019s exactly the kind of bet you make while building toward contention.<\/p>\n

She also joins a new and growing elite in the league: the million-dollar club. When Stevens won her championship with the Sky, her rookie contract was worth $70,000.<\/p>\n

The players union spent the last 17 months negotiating to change that, and the result was the most comprehensive revenue-sharing system in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

Stevens is already feeling the difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get seven figures is literally life-changing,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve been pretty fortunate to make good money playing basketball, but not that much. It\u2019s life-changing for my family \u2014 to just give back to my parents. They\u2019ve literally done more than I can imagine for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the WNBA enters its 30th season, at least 25 players will earn $1 million or more, according to the Her Hoop Stats database.<\/p>\n

Stevens said she plans to earn every penny.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"UCLA<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

After assembling a playoff-caliber roster in free agency, the Sky now add a do-everything wing from UCLA\u2019s loaded championship roster.<\/p>\n

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\"Texas<\/p>\n

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Coulibaly was the team\u2019s No. 22 pick (late second round) in the 2025 draft, but was recovering from an ACL injury at Texas A&M and never reported to training camp.<\/p>\n

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\"APTOPIX<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Flau\u2019jae Johnson? Kiki Rice? Here\u2019s the Sun-Times\u2019 take on how it could play out.<\/p>\n

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read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talk to any key piece of the Sky\u2019s 2021 championship team and they\u2019ll tell you Chicago is home.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-584120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}