{"id":734156,"date":"2026-06-30T04:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/734156\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:16:13","slug":"sky-qa-will-the-return-of-dijonai-carrington-be-able-to-turn-this-thing-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/734156\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky Q&A: Will the return of DiJonai Carrington be able to turn this thing around?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thank you to everyone who wrote in about this head-scratching Sky<\/a> season. Keep the questions coming.<\/p>\n

\u2022 How does [general manager Jeff Pagliocca] justify his decision to sign three players [Azura Stevens, Courtney Vandersloot, DiJonai Carrington] who are\/were injured such that they were not able to start the season? \u2014 Doressia H<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the big question, isn\u2019t it? The simplest way to put it is that Pagliocca and coach Tyler Marsh really wanted these players in the program<\/a>, so much that they were willing to wait for them. They love Stevens as a floor spacer and think she has a ton of upside offensively. They love Vandersloot\u2019s ability to run a team, and they love Carrington for all the things she\u2019s known for.<\/p>\n

The second piece of it, though, is that they believed the rest of the roster was strong enough to \u201chold it down\u201d in the players\u2019 absence. Maybe that would have been true if the Sky hadn\u2019t lost Rickea Jackson to injury, or shot so poorly to start the season, or if Marsh had more experience \u2014 I\u2019m really not sure. But they certainly weren\u2019t expecting to be 5-12 when Vandersloot returned.<\/p>\n

\u2022 How do they recover from Rickea Jackson\u2019s injury? [Jackson, the team\u2019s leading scorer, tore her anterior cruciate ligament in the fourth game of the season.] \u2014 X.com<\/p>\n

I think the team is starting to discover a way forward. The Sky have won two of their last three games, in which they averaged 100-plus points. Everyone from the Wings\u2019 Paige Bueckers to the Aces\u2019 Jewell Loyd has told me that the Sky are far more dangerous than their record shows.<\/p>\n

But it has taken a lot of progress to get to this point. Stevens had to regain her confidence after a knee injury. Kamilla Cardoso had to find another gear. Sydney Taylor had to prove herself, and Marsh had to trust her with the starting job.<\/p>\n

If only they could\u2019ve hammered out some of these things before sinking to the bottom of the standings. But changes are bearing fruit: Over the last eight games, the Sky are a top-three offense in the league.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Will the return of DiJonai Carrington turn this thing around? What\u2019s the timeline for her return? \u2014 Kayla M.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the positive: Having a great wing defender such as Carrington<\/a> is a huge asset. There are many great guards around the league \u2014 Bueckers, Rhyne Howard, Olivia Miles, Caitlin Clark \u2014 who require special attention, and Carrington is just the player to give it to them.<\/p>\n

Her leadership will help, too. Carrington is a fountain of knowledge on defense, and the Sky want to define themselves on that side of the ball.<\/p>\n

But I think what\u2019s at the heart of your question is this: The Sky have put themselves in a pretty big hole at 6-13, so it\u2019s tough to see one player digging them out of it, especially considering Carrington will need time to settle in when she does return.<\/p>\n

When will that be? I can tell you that she has been doing individual workouts (shooting, ballhandling, etc.) and rehab, but she has not returned to practice. The team hasn\u2019t given any target date<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Why does the offense stray away from Kamilla Cardoso? \u2014 X.com<\/p>\n

That was an early-season failure that the team recognizes and has gotten much better at. The last five games prove it<\/a>: Cardoso has been consistently involved, averaging 21.8 points on 75% shooting.<\/p>\n

Her avoiding foul trouble is key. Also, it does take more effort to get her involved than some of the better scorers in the league, many of whom you can just give the ball to on the perimeter and let go to work.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Is there a favorite song making its way through the team right now? \u2014 Mike P.<\/p>\n

I asked rookie forward Aicha Coulibaly about this, and she couldn\u2019t think of one. But she did say that she has been singing \u201cSay My Name\u201d every day in the locker room, and Rachel Banham is tired of it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Portland<\/p>\n

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

The Sky still have plenty to fix after losing to the Aces, but Cardoso\u2019s recent surge looks like the leap they have been waiting for.<\/p>\n

[month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]
\n \u00a0\n <\/p>\n

read<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Dallas<\/p>\n

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

That means Coulibaly, who was on a development contract, will no longer have a cap on the number of games she can play. <\/p>\n

[month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]
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read<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Portland<\/p>\n

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

It was no coincidence Vandersloot\u2019s return lined up with the Sky\u2019s best offensive performance of the season. Their 124 points were one shy of the WNBA record for most points by a team in regulation.<\/p>\n

[month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]
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read<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thank you to everyone who wrote in about this head-scratching Sky season. Keep the questions coming. \u2022 How…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-734156","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\/734156","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=734156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}