The Chicago Sky’s loss to the Indiana Fever on Sunday means the team won’t go to the playoffs for the third straight season.
Chicago still has five games on its schedule, spread out over a month because of the FIBA World Cup break.
Sky coach Tyler Marsh said on Sunday his job is not done, and the team is still focused on winning games.
“We’ve still got basketball left, and we’ve come a long way this season,” Marsh said. “ I don’t think anybody in the locker room is ready to mail it in. I think we all understand we’ve got a job to do. We’ve got an organization and the city to continue to play for.”
For most teams out of the playoffs, jockeying for a good draft spot makes more sense than winning games. However, the Sky have traded away draft capital over the past few seasons. In the 2027 draft, Chicago’s pick will be swapped with the Washington Mystics thanks to the 2025 Ariel Atkins trade.
Chicago dropped a game to the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday, but trying to win and grow makes sense from a morale standpoint. They can still try to get work done in the next month.
Here’s what the Sky still have left to play for in the final stretch of the season.
Develop young players for next season
Before Marsh was hired as the Sky’s head coach, he was known as a development guru with the Las Vegas Aces. Jackie Young has credited Marsh with her shooting improvements in 2023.
The Sky’s current roster has seven players with two years or fewer in the WNBA. Whether it’s Kamilla Cardoso, whom the Sky used a third overall draft pick on in 2024, or undrafted free agent Sydney Taylor, these are players who can make huge waves in the league.
This extra time during the FIBA break is a gift in helping these players develop. Marsh will get to spend time helping these players grow.
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Create memorable tape
Though the Sky will have several players returning in 2027, there are players whose contracts end this season.
Rachel Banham, Dijonai Carrington and Natasha Cloud’s contracts will expire. All three have the chance to remind other teams in the league of what they can do.
Carrington missed the first half of the season as her foot healed from an injury sustained during the 2025 playoffs. While her numbers have been respectable this season, scoring 8.8 points in 16.2 minutes per game, this is her opportunity to show she can still play at a high level.
Any prospective team will want the 2024 Carrington, who won Most Improved Player and was named to the All-Defensive team. This is the time for her to show she can still be that player.
Cloud has had some of the best games of her career in a Sky uniform. Against the Liberty on August 18, she scored a career-high 35 points. Her 11.3 points per game is an improvement on last season’s average of 10.0 points. Cloud will be 35 next season, and she can use these final games to show she can continue to be an important spark for whatever team signs her.
Banham is known for being an offensive spark off the bench who can get hot from the 3-point line. This season, however, she’s only attempting 3.4 threes per game, down from 5.5 per game last season. These last few games will give her the opportunity to show that she can still be counted on to make threes.
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Try to make plans for the future
When you look at the teams at the top of the league, like the Minnesota Lynx, Las Vegas Aces and Atlanta Dream, they have kept their cores together over multiple seasons while making key additions. They aren’t starting from scratch at training camp.
The plethora of young players and the free agent contracts signed this season mean that the Sky’s roster is not expected to make huge changes for 2027. This is the time to build that chemistry, get creative with plays and try to figure out how to make 2027 much better than this year.
