On Thursday night, the Chicago Sky lost to the New York Liberty, 91-86, to end their season with a 10-34 record and without a playoff berth for the second year in a row. The scoreline doesn't come close to telling the full story. 

The game marked the end to an embarrassing night following a tumultuous week that capped off a disastrous 2025 campaign for the franchise. 

Angel Reese, the face of the Sky and one of the brightest young stars in the league, spent the game on the bench in street clothes. She barely played after she gave an interview to the Chicago Tribune earlier this month questioning the competency of the Sky front office and the talent of her teammates, and putting pressure on the organization to make significant changes during the offseason.

Her quotes caused a firestorm, but she apologized publicly to her teammates after the comments were published, and it's clear most of the fans have forgiven her. Throughout Thursday's game, fans filled Wintrust Arena with chants of "Free Angel" and "Fire Jeff," referring to Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca.

As the other lottery teams look forward to offseasons spent building around their young stars, the Sky are left wondering if it's at all possible to salvage the relationship with theirs. Reese is not blameless in the situation, but the Sky organization has clearly fallen behind the rest of the league in terms of investment, and it has a history of unfixable disputes with its most prominent players.

It's very possible that "Chi Barbie" has played her last game with the Sky. And the team's owners have nobody to blame but themselves.

Reese's comments

The injury report said that Reese didn't play in the last few games of the season due to a back injury. It's possible that she really was physically incapable of taking the court. But even if the injury is real, it's also metaphorical. Two seasons in Chicago have taken their toll, mentally and physically.

Reese has been vocally supportive of the Sky throughout her tenure, and refused to publicly criticize them for things like a lack of a training facility. But she finally opened up to the Tribune about her frustrations. 

"I am very vocal about what we need and what I want," she said. "I'd like to be here for my career, but if things don't pan out, obviously I might have to move in a different direction and do what's best for me. But while I am here, I'm going to try to stay open-minded about what I have here and maximize that as much as I can."

Reese said she wanted the team to be very active in free agency to get help for her and fellow big Kamilla Cardoso, who she feels is the only other key piece on the current roster.

"I'm not settling for the same shit we did this year," Reese said. "We have to get good players. We have to get great players. That's a non-negotiable for me. I'm willing and wanting to play with the best. And however I can help to get the best here, that's what I'm going to do this offseason. So it's going to be very, very important this offseason to make sure we attract the best of the best because we can't settle for what we have this year."

Her most controversial comments -- and the ones that probably caused the most strife in the locker room -- were about her lack of faith in 36-year-old point guard and franchise legend Courtney Vandersloot, who tore her ACL earlier in the season.

"We can't rely on Courtney to come back at the age that she's at. I know she'll be a great asset for us, but we can't rely on that. We need someone, probably a little younger with some experience, somebody who's been playing the game and is willing to compete for a championship and has done it before," she said.

It's understandable that her teammates were upset by these comments, as it's rare for a player to give such a critical interview on-the-record, especially during a season. But, as mentioned above, she immediately publicly apologized to her teammates. And yet, the Sky decided to publicly punish her anyway, suspending her for one half of a game for "conduct detrimental to the team" while issuing a bizarre statement about safety.

"The Chicago Sky values the safety, respect, and well-being of every player," the team said in a statement. "We are committed to accountability so our players can stay focused on playing basketball. This matter has been handled and resolved internally, and we are moving forward as a team."

Organization malfeasance

Reese's comments were surprisingly frank and probably ill-advised as a teammate. But they also weren't incorrect. In fact, during his exit interview on Friday afternoon, Pagliocca himself admitted that the Sky needed to improve their roster in the offseason and especially get help for Vandersloot at the point guard position.

The reality is, the Sky organization has failed Reese the past two years. And despite its 2021 title, the organization has been failing all of its players in a multitude of ways for far longer. 

The team still practices in a public recreation facility in the Chicago suburbs, though a team-specific training facility is finally on the way. Candace Parker famously noted that she didn't have her own locker when she played for the Sky. It was one of the last organizations in the league to separate the general manager position from the coach position, only hiring its first standalone GM, Pagliocca, in 2023. And Pagliocca hasn't been making a strong impression his first two years.

This past offseason, he made a trade that might turn out to be one of the worst trades in WNBA history, sending the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 draft, a 2027 second-round pick, and swap rights for the Sky's 2027 first-round pick to the Washington Mystics for Ariel Atkins. That No. 3 pick was Sonia Citron, who became an All-Star in her rookie season and looks to have a future as a perennial All-WNBA talent. Atkins -- who, in her defense, is a two-time All-Star, Olympian, and WNBA champion -- had an injury-plagued season that saw her perform well below her peak, and she's now a free agent, while the Mystics have Citron for another three cost-controlled years.

The Sky also didn't necessarily make a good impression with Reese when they fired head coach Teresa Weatherspoon, with whom Reese was very close, after only one season. Or when Paggliocca himself took the mic earlier this season to publicly chastise Reese's play. 

But this is a problem that goes well beyond Pagliocca. In 2015, Sylvia Fowles forced her way out of Chicago by refusing to sign an extension and sitting out part of the season because she was frustrated with how the franchise was building around her and felt in order to accomplish her goals, she needed to be elsewhere. She was eventually traded to the Minnesota Lynx in July, where she went on to win the MVP and two championships. Two years later Elena Delle Donne also forced her way out of Chicago with similar concerns; she was traded to the Washington Mystics, where she went on to win her second MVP award and the 2019 WNBA championship.

If things are really going to improve in Chicago, it's going to need to happen at the ownership level. The Sky have been owned by businessman Michael Alter since its debut in 2006.

What's next?

Reese is not a free agent this offseason, so she doesn't have as much control over her immediate future. She has one more year left on her contract with the Sky, and then there's a team option for her fourth season. So any change would need to come in the form of a trade.

Only time will tell if Reese will publicly request a trade, if the Sky decide to honor that request, or if the two sides find common ground and mend fences.

In his exit interview, Pagliocca praised Reese's on-court growth this season.

"I think we saw so much new and so much good out of her this season compared to last year. She was able to build on the success she had. We saw her as a facilitator, we saw her playing in space, we saw her put the ball on the floor. Percentages were up in a number of categories, finding consistency with her shooting in the mid-range, facing up, uh, pick and pop from the 3-point line, and just continuing to use her handle to get to spaces and play in tighter spaces, Pagliocca said.

"She's proven that she can be a very dangerous mismatch, and she can pull bigs out onto the perimeter, and she's got a lot of weapons that she was able to showcase a lot more this season."

When asked about the drama of the past week, and Reese mentioning that she might not have a future with the Sky, Pagliocca indicated that for now, publicly at least, the plan is to move forward together.

"Angel's an ascending young talent in this league who's had two very, very good seasons here in Chicago. Obviously, you know, we went through what we did. I feel like we closed the chapter on it. She spoke to her teammates, she spoke publicly. We moved on as a team, he said. 

"She's a special player, and I have good conversations with Angel daily, with her team daily. They're constant and they're productive and until I hear differently, that's the direction we're gonna move, is that she's on the roster."