Chicago Sky first-round pick Hailey Van Lith has played rather sparingly so far for the team.
In the team's lone game this season, Van Lith played just over four minutes, going 2-for-2 from the floor for four points.
All of Van Lith's minutes came in garbage time, as the team opted to give Rachel Banham the guard minutes off the bench. Van Lith was not part of the actual rotation.
Why the Sky need to get more minutes for Hailey Van Lith
Let's just put this out there: the Chicago Sky aren't a good basketball team.
This isn't meant as an insult. They have good pieces — Angel Reese might be flawed offensively, but she's already arguably the league's best rebounder, and Kamila Cardoso is an intriguing young center — but they don't have the kind of go-to scorer that winning teams in this league need.
In fact, you could argue that the worst move the team made this offseason was going after a go-to scorer, sending the No. 3 pick to Washington in the deal that brought Ariel Atkins to Chicago.
No offense meant to Atkins, who is a very good player, but ideally, you want her to be your No. 2 scorer. She'd look great in the role as a kind of Robin to someone's Batman, but that wasn't really what Chicago needed. Holding pat at No. 3 and drafting Sonia Citron would have been a smart move.
But I digress. This isn't about how the Sky shouldn't have made a move to contend, even if it was a misguided move. It's about how the reality is that the team isn't very good and it should work to get its young players more minutes.
Which brings us back to Van Lith.
Late first round picks are no guarantee in the WNBA. There's a reason that Van Lith was still available when the Sky were picking at No. 11 overall — she's still a flawed prospect.
Van Lith grew as a playmaker at the end of her senior year at TCU, but she's still a potential liability on defense because she's undersized, and her ability to create against professional defenders could be a problem.
But the Sky will never know what she can bring them if they don't give her minutes. Right now, the team is starting Courtney Vandersloot at point guard. She's one of the best to ever play the position, but she's also on the tail-end of her career. She played more minutes in the opening game of the season than any other member of this Sky team.
At some point, Chicago has to accept the fact that this team didn't suddenly become a contender. It's very much still a rebuilding team, and rebuilding teams need to get their young players on the floor.
I'm not convinced Van Lith is a long-term answer for the Sky. Her limitations could prevent her from being a primary ball-handler, while at the same time her lack of efficiency from deep could make it tough for her to stick as a two-guard.
But Chicago won't know the answer to these concerns without playing Van Lith. If this team wants to figure out who on this roster is and isn't part of the future, it has to get its first-round pick more playing time than just four minutes at the end of a blowout loss. It has to play her with the starters. Otherwise, this whole thing is doomed from the start.