Chicago Sky Paid Two Draft Picks to Opt Out of the Expansion Draft. Was It Genius or Just Embarrassing?

The Sky's novel deal with the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo protected a young core, but also exposed just how thin their roster really is.

When the Chicago Sky announced on Wednesday that they had struck deals with both the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo to ensure neither expansion team would select a player from their unprotected list, the reaction on social media was instant.

Fan comments circulated across all social media platforms after the news broke. On one hand, this is a clever use of the expansion draft rules. On the other hand, it raises an uncomfortable question: if your roster is so unappealing that expansion teams wouldn't have taken anyone anyway, are you really protecting anything?

The answer, it turns out, is more complicated than either side of the debate wants to admit.

What the Sky Actually Did

The mechanics of the deal are straightforward. The Sky sent their No. 17 pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft to Portland in exchange for the Fire's No. 21 pick. They also shipped their No. 26 pick (originally from New York) to Toronto. In return, both expansion teams agreed not to select any player from Chicago's unprotected list in Friday's draft.

This move takes advantage of a specific clause in the expansion draft rules that allows existing teams to trade with expansion franchises for the right to have their players not selected. It has been available to every team in the league. The Sky is the only franchise that used it this cycle, which is either a sign of innovative thinking or a red flag about what was available on their unprotected list.

After the trades, Chicago still holds three picks in the upcoming college draft: No. 5 overall in the first round, No. 21 in the second, and No. 32 in the third. The first-round pick is the real prize, with mock drafts projecting the Sky could land Kiki Rice out of UCLA, LSU's Flau'jae Johnson, or South Carolina's Ta'Niya Latson.

The Case For: A Young Core Worth Protecting

Teams can protect only five players in the expansion draft. For Chicago, Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso, Ariel Atkins, and Ajša Sivka would realistically claim four of those five spots which would leave room for one more. That means players like Hailey Van Lith, Maddy Westbeld, Aicha Coulibaly, and Sevgi Uzun would all have been competing for a single protected slot, with the rest exposed.

Van Lith, in particular, is an interesting case. The former TCU guard had a rocky 2025 season under head coach Tyler Marsh, who repeatedly used other players over her in the rotation. But she still has legitimate star potential, and is the kind of player an expansion team would happily scoop up. The same logic applies to Westbeld and Coulibaly who were both 2025 draft picks.

By spending two late second-round picks (No. 17 and No. 26), the Sky effectively bought insurance on an entire generation of young talent. That is not a bad return on investment if even one of those players develops into a meaningful contributor.

The Case Against: You Can't Hide a 10-Win Roster

The Chicago Sky have gone 23-61 over the last two seasons. They tied for the league's worst record in 2025. Their unprotected list included names like Rachel Banham, Kia Nurse, and Elizabeth Williams who are veterans, but not the kind of talent that sends expansion general managers to the war room at midnight.

Spending draft capital to prevent teams from taking your players implies that those players had real value worth protecting. But if the expansion teams were never going to take them in the first place, the Sky just donated second-round picks for nothing. It is the roster management equivalent of paying for home security in a house that nobody would want to rob.

There is also the question of pick value. The No. 17 pick is not nothing. In a deep draft class, late second-rounders have produced meaningful players. Giving one away to slide down four spots while also sending out the No. 26 pick is a real cost, even if it feels abstract against the backdrop of Chicago's larger rebuild.

The Bigger Picture: Expansion Is No Longer a Free Win

There is one more dimension to this story that matters for how we evaluate what the Sky did, and it has nothing to do with their unprotected list.

For most of WNBA history, expansion teams were the league's punching bags. In their own 2006 debut, the Sky won just five games. Building a roster from the scraps of other teams' benches, without a lottery pick, was a recipe for years of losing. That was the established formula.

Then the Golden State Valkyries shattered it. In their first season, the Valkyries became the winningest expansion team in league history, made the playoffs, and went 3-0 against the Sky. They had elite ownership, a transformative fan atmosphere, and international player scouting that outpaced most of the established franchises.

Now the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo arrive in 2026, coached by Alex Sarama and two-time champion Sandy Brondello respectively, with deep-pocketed ownership groups and real ambitions. The looming question for every established team, including the Sky, is whether the Valkyries were a one-off or the beginning of a new era in which expansion franchises are built to compete immediately.

If it's the latter, protecting your roster from them at the cost of a couple of draft picks starts to look less paranoid and more prudent.

Verdict: Smart Enough, But It Won't Move the Needle

The Chicago Sky's expansion draft strategy is novel, creative, and defensible. They identified a rule that others overlooked, used it to solve a real roster problem, and did so without touching their most valuable asset: the No. 5 overall pick in April's college draft.

But let's not oversell it. This is a clever administrative maneuver by a franchise that still has enormous work to do. Keeping Van Lith, Westbeld, and Coulibaly in Chicago means nothing if the Sky don't develop them properly. Holding onto the No. 5 pick is only as valuable as the player they select, and their track record in recent drafts has been mixed at best.

The real test isn't Friday's expansion draft. It's whether this front office can finally build a team worthy of Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso.

The real test isn't Friday's expansion draft. It's whether general manager Jeff Pagliocca and coach Tyler Marsh can finally construct a roster worthy of Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. These are the two players who have the talent to anchor a championship contender and deserve better than back-to-back 10-win seasons.

The expansion draft strategy bought Chicago some time and kept their young roster intact. Now they have to do something with it.