Chicago Sky leadership wanted to focus on the long term Wednesday as the team broke ground on construction of a new training facility in Bedford Park.
The facility will cost more than $30 million, the Sky’s latest investment in staying competitive in a new era of the WNBA. And it’s a major victory for a franchise aiming to break away from its shared facility at Sachs Recreation Center in Deerfield, a longtime sticking point for free agents and Sky players.
But the short-term future is more pressing for the Sky, who are seeking a new coach for the second time in less than a year after firing Teresa Weatherspoon at the conclusion of a 13-27 debut season.
General manager Jeff Pagliocca emphasized his respect for Weatherspoon as a coach and colleague.
“I had a great friendship with her,” Pagliocca said at the groundbreaking. “I have a lot of respect for Spoon. We’re very appreciative of the spirit she brought to us every night. As an organization, we felt it was time to make a change.”
For the Sky, the issue came down to inexperience — a weakness the front office understood and even embraced when it first hired Weatherspoon. She previously served as a college head coach from 2009-14 at Louisiana Tech, her alma mater, and as an assistant for the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans but never had worked in the WNBA as a head or assistant coach.
Pagliocca acknowledged that Weatherspoon’s lack of professional head coaching experience had made veteran free agents wary about joining the Sky, a warning sign for a franchise in the early stages of a rebuild.
“We heard things along those lines,” Pagliocca said. “We just want to make sure that we’re continuing our quest for a championship, being in the playoffs every single season.”
Photos: Chicago Sky break ground on their new practice facility in Bedford Park
Center Elizabeth Williams said the decision to fire Weatherspoon blindsided the majority of the roster.
Weatherspoon had just completed the first season of a three-year contract. And although the Sky missed the playoffs for the first time since 2018, their clear emphasis on reshaping the roster — highlighted by the midseason trade of Marina Mabrey to the Connecticut Sun — seemed to signal a long-term focus for the front office.
“I honestly think that the organization did what they thought was best for the team,” Williams said. “Obviously I have great love for Spoon. She’s a great human being. This was just a situation where we just have to move forward.”
Managing player reactions was a crucial challenge for the front office — especially those of star forward Angel Reese, who took to social media immediately after Weatherspoon’s firing to voice her disappointment and confusion. Guard Chennedy Carter — who will be a key target for the Sky in free agency — expressed similar frustration.
While both players still are overcoming those initial emotions, Pagliocca said the Sky are not worried about navigating the future with either player.
“The franchise’s relationship with Angel is in a good spot,” Pagliocca said. “Emotions were high for a couple days and we can respect that. We can appreciate it. We understand that there’s bonds that are built with coaches and players, especially the young ones.
“So we’re in a good place right now. We’re back in discussions. Everything has calmed down quite a bit, but I understand it. Emotions are a real part of this thing when you have a real friendship.”
It’s clear Sky players liked and respected Weatherspoon. She showered players with affection and support, giving needed confidence and guidance to players such as Carter still trying to figure out their place in the WNBA. After one practice, Weatherspoon joked that she brought Cerelac to work every day because her players were her babies.
But Weatherspoon’s tactics were another topic. Her rotations were sluggish from the start of the season. Late-game play calling became a clear weakness as the Sky collapsed in clutch situations. It took months to adopt a high-low system that had a chance to maximize the Kamilla Cardoso-Reese tandem.
Over the Olympic break, Weatherspoon installed a new offense at the request of players to feature higher-concept motion. But every time the Sky were missing one of their core three — Reese, Carter or Cardoso — it became clear those individual performances were acting as massive patches of duct tape over flaws too big to fix, at least this season.
Every Sky player brought up Weatherspoon’s inexperience in their exit interviews with media. This wasn’t always negative — often it came up when players defended Weatherspoon’s performance.
Diamond DeShields described the season as “abnormal” due to a high volume of injuries, and Rachel Banham said she admired how Weatherspoon approached “the adversity of this season.” Williams praised Weatherspoon for being “solid” for a first-year head coach but acknowledged “first-year growing pains” in the team’s schemes.
“I commend her for doing her best to kind of rally the troops,” Michaela Onyenwere said at the time. “I feel like in the future, she’ll definitely learn from this season.”
Another factor in the swiftness of Weatherspoon’s firing was that the Sky did things out of order when they hired her in the first place, installing a coach several weeks before hiring Pagliocca.
Despite the result, Sky Operating Chairman Nadia Rawlinson defended that decision Wednesday.
“At the press conference last year, I mentioned that we do things our way at the Sky,” Rawlinson said. “It was what made sense at the time.”
But hiring in that order always risked creating an off-balance pairing. Pagliocca quickly became aggressive in his first year managing the Sky, recouping the majority of the draft capital squandered by former coach/GM James Wade in 2023 while making painful decisions to trade Kahleah Copper and Mabrey.
“I don’t know if it contributed to the decision at all, but obviously it’s rare that the GM is hired afterwards,” Pagliocca said. “We made it work as long as we could.”
Pagliocca now is in charge of the coaching search with an emphasis on finding a candidate who brings “structure, discipline and accountability.” Neither he nor Rawlinson disclosed a specific timeline for hiring a coach, although the looming dates of the expansion draft (Dec. 6) and free agency (Feb. 1) create obvious mile markers.
“We’re looking to move with alacrity,” Rawlinson said.
Pagliocca said he has received calls from interested candidates but wants to remain “patient and aggressive” throughout the process. The search also will include the assembly of an assistant coaching staff, another area where the Sky lacked experience last season.
The most important step toward retaining buy-in from Reese and other players will be hiring a coach who can bring both success and longevity to Chicago.
“We’re looking for a coach that we can keep here for a very long time,” Pagliocca said.
