Not every story has a happy ending. Courtney Vandersloot's return to Chicago after winning a championship in New York was a chance for her to go back to the place where she spent the majority of her WNBA career, an opportunity for arguably the best pass-first point guard in league history to help a young team get to the next level.
Instead, her return to Chicago is over after X games, as Vandersloot suffered a torn ACL during the team's game on Saturday against the Indiana Fever.
With Vandersloot injured, the Sky suddenly have a fairly huge gap at point guard, and there's really only one thing the team can do at this point about that: play rookie Hailey Van Lith.
Hailey Van Lith might not be the answer for Chicago but it has to try
Late first-round picks don't tend to have a great track record in the WNBA. Van Lith was the No. 11 pick in this year's draft, and players selected that late in the round have been fairly hit-or-miss. For example, last year's No. 11 pick, Marquesha Davis, is averaging just 3.0 minutes per game for New York this season. The last player picked No. 11 overall to be a multi-year starter in the WNBA was Brianna Turner in 2019. The last who could be called a star was Chelsea Gray, way back in 2014.
There's no guarantee that Van Lith is the answer to Chicago's point guard problem with Vandersloot sidelined. It's entirely possible that the best solution if the Sky want to be competitive is to move Rachel Banham into the starting lineup, relying on her veteran experience to help steady things.
That move would be short-sighted, though. Because here's the simple truth: the Chicago Sky are a bad basketball team.
Chicago is 2-5 on the season, with both wins coming against a Dallas Wings team that's looked like the worst (or second-worst, if you want to be generous) team in the league this season. Against everyone else, the Sky are 0-5 with four double-digit losses, including the blow-out loss Saturday to a Fever team that was still playing without Caitlin Clark.
The Sky need to think about the future, which is why it's time to get Van Lith on the court.
While the rookie is averaging just 12.6 minutes and 3.4 points per game, she saw extended time after Vandersloot went down, playing 25 minutes and scoring a career-high seven points on 40 percent shooting.
Efficiency has been a big issue for Van Lith so far this season as she's connected on just 29.4 percent of her shot attempts and has yet to make a 3-pointer, but some of that is likely just the noise of a small sample. We can't make sweeping judgments about a player from 17 shot attempts, only five of which are from beyond the arc.
Sure, Van Lith's shooting woes could turn out to be a real concern. She was a decent shooter in college, but didn't shoot over 35 percent from deep in any of her final three years, possibly foreshadowing the issues we've seen from her so far.
But, like ... so what? Chicago isn't a playoff team. The Sky need to find out if Van Lith can be an effective ball-handler and scorer at this level. She's unlikely to be a star in the league, but this season can be a trial by fire to see if Van Lith is capable of being a rotational piece on a future version of the Sky.