I want everyone to close their eyes. Now raise your hand if you thought the Chicago Sky would be 2-0 right now. Open your eyes.
You probably don’t see anything since you are in your car or on your Peloton or whatever, but if we did this activity in Wintrust, I think we would see very few hands in the air. Which would be a nice reminder for us petty Chicagoans to be a little more trusting and hopeful with our sports teams. This Sky franchise did win a WNBA championship just two years ago!
Believe it or not, the Sky are 2-0 baby!
After beating the Minnesota Lynx and Brittney Griner’s Phoenix Mercury on the road, we’re going to review some early surprises and disappointments.
Surprises
Our new center Liz Williams, obviously.
Liz: I had never heard of you before this season and that is my fault. You are, as our Lead Basketball Analyst put it, a Dawg. An 8-year veteran, you came to us from the Washington Mystics. You go after every rebound. You had approximately 8,376 deflections against the Lynx. Then Brittney Griner dropped 29 on us despite your efforts, but I didn’t need to close my eyes, because you are a legit defender who made the WNBA All-Defensive team in 2020 and will make our interior defense way tougher than we Townies expected. Thank you. I’m being a little provocative now, trying to get under the skin of our Lead Basketball Analyst/Candace Sympathizer, but I think I’d rather watch you play than Candace Parker. You are the scrappy veteran hustle player the Sky haven’t had in a while, and after two years of watching Candace not box-out (while the media fawns over her), your hustle is really soothing. Probably because you are so busy getting deflections, you don’t spend half the game looking like this:
And yes, I know that Candace will probably come dunk on us because of this trash talk, or knock us out of the playoffs with her silky fadeaway jumper, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take right now.
Our defense! Wow! Last year, our offense had that poetry-in-motion look, but you sorta had to cringe watching us play our old lady defense. This year we are young and gritty. Our Lead Basketball Analyst says that Dana Evans, our girl, is setting the tone for us defensively, applying disciplined ball pressure and tiring out her opponent. Courtney Williams and Rebekah Gardner are following her lead on the perimeter, and we have Liz Williams working her ass off down low. It’s never this simple, but if teams can achieve greatness with either talent/skill on one hand, and grit/hustle on the other, I do feel like our vibe has switched to the latter this year. We’ve gone from pretty to gritty.
Disappointments
Disappointment isn’t really the right word, but I’m putting our new starting guards Courtney Williams and Marina Mabrey in this category for now (my own fault for over-hyping them as one of the best guard trios in the league along with Copper???). Courtney Williams actually hit some huge shots for us late in the game against the Mercury, but I thought she was forcing things against the Lynx and not making our offense gel as a point guard should (which is maybe why our girl Dana Evans was moved to STARTING point guard against Phoenix!!) I’ll give Courtney time and try to let go of my suspicion that, after beating us in the Semi-Finals last year, she came here to sabotage us and deepen our suffering. After all, if Kahleah Copper trusts her now, than I should too.
As for Mabrey: I thought she was living and dying by the 3-ball against the Lynx and not working to get in the lane. She did have a nice floor game though and seemed to be finding Copper at the right times. Overall, Williams and Mabrey probably just need some time to get in rhythm with their new team. You can tell that our returners (Copper, Evans, Gardner) feel a little more comfortable out there and I was way more impressed with them.
Opening Weekend Selected Texts from the Sky Townies Group Chat
Yo I hate to say it but this year’s team is making me realize that last year’s team was kinda soft.
Can you send your dad’s cable password? LeaguePass not working
Lead Basketball Analyst Take on Our First Game: We were working really hard last night—getting up and down the court, crashing the boards, cutting hard. Maybe James Wade is a good coach after all?
Kahleah Copper
Kahleah Copper gets her own section because she is now our undisputed Top Gun, averaging 17.5 PPG this season.
The first thing to note about KFC (Kahleah Freakin’ Copper) is that she is probably my favorite player in the league. She’s a competitor, she seems super connected to her teammates, she has crazy ups, she rebounds and plays lock down D in addition to being our Bucket Getter. That’s why both of my Sky jerseys say Copper on the back (I have the blue and the black).
Today we’re doing a little run down of how Kahleah gets her buckets and how that will change this season with 1) a brand-new team around her and 2) defenses focused on stopping her and 3) her own growth as a player.
KFC Buckets Analysis
Transition offense. In transition, it sort of doesn’t matter who’s on the floor with Cop—if you can make a basic chest pass to her, she will catch it and then beat everyone to the rim with a sick finish. That’s been happening already and will no doubt continue.
Free throws. To me the most exciting thing about Copper is that she has a lot of room to improve. She gets to the line a lot on her drives, but she’s only a 78% career free throw shooter. Getting her free throw percentage up to solidly above 80% (as she’s done in the first two games) will be huge for the Sky.
Drives. Since her first step is pretty much unstoppable, teams know what to do against Copper: send over the weak side help on her drives. She needs to do a better job slowing herself down and passing out of that pressure. Getting doubled in the lane is tough. But she gets tied up or picked off a little too much (or forced into a wild shot).
Other buckets at the rim. Kahleah has historically done some of her scoring by hanging around the rim and receiving sick passes from teammates, and then elevating for an automatic bucket. Last year, everyone around Copper—from Sloot the general, to Candace, to Quigley—was a great passer who could hit Copper in the lane. They made it look easy! Actually though, it’s very difficult to pass through traffic, and this year’s more-gritty-less pretty-team has been struggling to thread the needle (lots of passes being deflected or intercepted before getting to Cop). I wonder if our new squad will get the hang of it.
3-point shooting. Since everyone tries to take away her drives, Cop has to hit the 3. If she can shoot 35% or higher from behind the arc like she did last year, it will really open up her game. Though improving, her long range game hasn’t been totally consistent in the past few years, so I still see this as an area for improvement.
Skytown, our home opener is this Friday May 26th @ 7p.m. against the Washington Mystics, who whooped the super team-y Liberty last weekend. Gonna be a tough battle!!!
Until then, please let us now how you are feeling about this season! You can hit reply to this e-mail, or hit us up on Twitter (@sky_townies).
First, I love this newsletter and the honest assessments. I’m excited about the season for many of the reasons you all touch on. Elizabeth Williams has been tremendous at defense and rebounding and a surprise scorer, agile and graceful around the basket. And, yes, Courtney Williams and Mabrey have not been on point—and we’re still 2-0! They will only get better. Alanna Smith is versatile, playing inside and out, supplying scoring off the bench with Gardiner. The team has a real positive attitude and feeling. Smith and Gardiner play with such joy; Courtney Williams seems happy to be here! I have hopes for Robyn Parks too! And KFC—she’s the bomb! Pure play-ah!
Didn’t t have cable for either game but dang this was a great way to catch up. Thanks!