Sky<\/a> center Kamilla Cardoso remains confident about where the team is headed next year.<\/p>\n\u201cI think we have a great squad,\u201d she told the Sun-Times. \u201cI think injuries messed us up a little bit, but I believe we have a great squad to make it to the playoffs and win a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cardoso will enter the final year of her rookie contract next season. A championship is almost certainly still a ways off, but the Sky should benefit from better health and another year of development for their young core.<\/p>\n
First, they must decide who will oversee that development.<\/p>\n
Coach Tyler Marsh has been on the hot seat given the team was expected to make the playoffs. But Cardoso, who has praised Marsh\u2019s offensive system throughout the season, gave him a vote of confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Tyler is an amazing coach,\u201d she said. \u201cI think he\u2019s doing a great job and everything that he possibly can to help us. I do think he\u2019s the right fit and I\u2019m really excited to see what the future holds.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Marsh returns for a third season, he\u2019ll have plenty of continuity to work with. Nine of the 13 players on the roster are under contract, and the Sky will have two first-round draft picks, one from the Dream and one from the Mystics.<\/p>\n
The key will be making sure their young talent takes another step.<\/p>\n
Cardoso had her best season yet, averaging 14.7 points and 8.7 rebounds, but parts of her game remain raw. She still doesn\u2019t shoot much outside the paint, and foul trouble hurts her defensively.<\/p>\n
This offseason, Cardoso is going to play in Project B, the five-on-five touring league launching in January. Before then, she\u2019ll spend a few weeks at home in Brazil, then return to Chicago to train before Project B begins.<\/p>\n
Respectable rookies<\/p>\n
Three rookies in the starting lineup offered some support for Cardoso\u2019s optimism. With veterans managing their injuries, rookies Aicha Coulibaly and Gabriela Jaquez made the most of their starts.<\/p>\n
Coulibaly scored 11 points in the first half, continuing to show more polish on her drives. Jaquez looked more like the player from her first 15 games and finished with 14 points and 2 steals.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust being aggressive, trying to help the team win,\u201d Jaquez said of her performance.<\/p>\n
But the wheels came off when the Dream turned up the pressure in the second half, and the Sky fell 106-to-81.<\/p>\n
Turnovers and poor three-point shooting once again hurt the Sky. So did their former star, Angel Reese, who scored 23 points on 9-13 shooting.<\/p>\n
Taylor troubles<\/p>\n
Taylor had another rough night. She picked up three early fouls and finished with two points on 1-8 shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of Sydney\u2019s growth areas is just not getting distracted when [her] shot\u2019s not falling,\u201d Marsh said. \u201cThere\u2019s other ways that she can continue to be effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor did show off some nifty playmaking with two highlight-reel passes in the first half, but overall the Dream\u2019s physicality gave her trouble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Another day, another beat down, this time at the hands of the Dream. Despite the rough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-853973","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\/853973","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=853973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}