Chicago Sky Struggle with Facility Delays and Roster Turmoil
The Chicago Sky are navigating facility delays, an ACL injury, a losing record, and Skylar Diggins' frustration over her new bench role.
There is the season the Chicago Sky outlined on paper, and there is the one they are actually living through. The distance between the two starts with a building that still isn't finished.
The team's $60 million practice facility in Bedford Park, once billed as a cornerstone of the franchise's long-term plan, remains held up by construction delays with no firm opening date. In the meantime, the Sky have paid $160,000 to rent the Flames Athletic Center at the University of Illinois Chicago and have cycled through Loyola University Chicago and Wintrust Arena for practice space. It's a logistical strain that doesn't show up in a box score, but it has shaped a season already defined by turbulence.
A rough record, and a rough break
Chicago sits at 6-14. Rickea Jackson, the team's primary offseason acquisition, traded from Los Angeles, tore her ACL just four games into her Sky debut and is done for the year. Her absence leaves a rotation with little margin left to give.
The losses have piled up beyond the record. Chicago's most lopsided defeat of the season came in a 124-94 blowout against the Portland Fire, followed more recently by an 85-68 loss to the Toronto Tempo.
Diggins moved to the bench, despite the numbers
The most combustible storyline belongs to Skylar Diggins. The seven-time All-Star started 19 games before being moved into a reserve role, a change her production doesn't obviously explain: 14.2 points, 4.9 assists, 39 percent shooting from the field and a team-high 28.8 minutes per night.
There is a very unpopular basketball case for the move. Courtney Vandersloot recently returned from an ACL injury of her own, adding to a backcourt that already includes offseason addition Natasha Cloud and rookie Sydney Taylor, who has pushed her way into the rotation. With that group crowding the depth chart, Chicago shifted Diggins into more of a reserve or combo-guard role to balance the minutes.
Diggins isn't convinced. She posted to her Instagram story,
"Now I'm coming off the bench?????? Cool," over a video in which she added, "And the crazy part about it all is that... I've been so quiet. I've been so good and quiet."
From Instagram to the podium
The tension escalated well past social media after the loss to Toronto. Asked in her postgame press conference about the team's half-court offensive execution, Diggins sent the question straight to her head coach. "That's a Tyler question. Ask Tyler," she said, referring to Tyler Marsh.
She didn't stop there. Diggins called the team's lack of effort on the boards a "heart thing" and said Chicago needs to shed its "loser mentality." She added that the Sky need "maturity and more leadership on and off the floor from the players on the floor and from the staff as well."
Team leadership tries to steady things
Marsh has framed Diggins' new role less as a demotion and more as a positioning move, pointing to the value of her experience mentoring younger players like Kamilla Cardoso and Gabriela Jaquez through a difficult stretch.
Diggins has acknowledged the adjustment isn't easy. "I'm trying to figure myself out," she said, while trying to remain a resource for her teammates through it.
What's next
Whether that framing holds up depends on what the second half of the season looks like. The Sky get their next chance to change the story Tuesday, July 7, against the Phoenix Mercury.