Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- A key forward for the Chicago Sky, Rickea Jackson, is out for the season with a torn ACL, deepening the team's injury woes.
- The team faces immediate decisions on how to fill the vacancy while managing limited frontcourt depth and player availability.
- The next move could determine whether Chicago stabilizes its rotation or struggles through a critical stretch before key players return.
One of the biggest offseason moves for the Chicago Sky was the trade that sent Ariel Atkins to the Los Angeles Sparks and landed Rickea Jackson in the Windy City. Unfortunately for the Sky, Jackson's season is now over after the forward suffered a torn ACL.
That makes a shorthanded Sky team even more shorthanded and threatens the team's chances of making the postseason, even after a strong start. Chicago's best replacement for Jackson in the starting lineup, for example, is a player who has yet to play a game this season. Let's take the long view here, though — once the Sky are closer to 100 percent, what will the rotation look like?
Projected Chicago Sky depth chart after Rickea Jackson injury
Starter | Backup | Backup | |
|---|---|---|---|
G | Skylar Diggins | Natasha Cloud | Courtney Vandersloot* |
G | Jacy Sheldon | DiJonai Carrington* | Sydney Taylor |
F | Gabriela Jaquez | Rachel Banham | Aicha Coulibaly |
F | Azura Stevens* | Maddy Westbeld | |
C | Kamilla Cardoso | Elizabeth Williams |
The big question here: What will the Sky do until Azura Stevens returns? Once she's back, you slide her in at the 4, and you're basically fine, albeit there would be depth concerns still. Stevens suffered a knee injury during camp and will miss the Sky's game against the Dallas Wings on Wednesday, but she could return soon.
But until Stevens is back, uhh ... the situation isn't ideal. Developmental player Maddy Westbeld has yet to play this season, but the Sky might actually need to start her until Stevens returns, and she'll almost certainly play as much as the developmental player rules allow until there's another option at the 4.
Chicago may need to either go super big — Elizabeth Williams and Kamilla Cardoso sharing the frontcourt — or super small to make things work. Like ... they could theoretically run a lineup of Cloud-Diggins-Sheldon-Jaquez-Cardoso for stretches, though you don't want that to be your full-time lineup by any means, even if Jaquez has shown up big so far and could probably work anywhere the Sky needed her to. Maybe subbing Banham in there for Sheldon works a little better from a "not playing too small" perspective, but it's still not ideal.
Jackson was really hiding a lot of Chicago's roster construction issues due to her ability to play at both forward spots. With that versatility gone, Chicago has to get creative, which won't be easy. Even if the whole roster sans Jackson was suddenly healthy, the fact that you have so many point and/or combo guards makes it tough to experiment too much. Like...you aren't playing a Vandersloot-Cloud duo together. This serves as a good example of why people tend to be so down on this front office. You remove one player from the lineup and everything falls apart. The Sky might be the Jenga of WNBA teams.
Again, having Stevens back will fix a good bit of this. She can't play 40 minutes per night, but if she gives them 30 minutes at the four, the Sky won't have to contort the rest of the roster into some weird shape to make things work. Until then, though, things might be pretty rough in Chicago.
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