Point guard Courtney Vandersloot is the best player in Sky history. For 12 seasons, she kept the team relevant, and when other key players left, she stayed — until February, when she signed with the Liberty.
What would it have taken for her to return?
“Everyone would have needed to come back,” she told the Sun-Times.
That was her short answer.
What followed was a more profound explanation, painting a picture of a dedicated athlete who, after more than a decade of comfort in Chicago, grappled with an opportunity to embrace the unknown.
For a long time, Vandersloot said, she couldn’t envision herself playing for any other team, but ultimately she realized her personal development hinged on change. Describing her fears, the word “plateau” came out of her mouth like poison.
As the Sky came up less and less in her conversations about free agency, she knew she’d made her decision to leave.
“I was so comfortable here, and I always considered it a good thing,” Vandersloot said. “But I know that if I wanted to continue to grow as a player, as a person, and as a leader, I needed to go outside of my comfort zone. So there was nothing, really, they could have done. Not to say they didn’t try. [But] it was something [where] I needed to make a decision for me and my career.”
For fans, perhaps the hardest part of Vandersloot’s exit was that few saw it coming. Even after the Sky blew an 11-point lead against the Sun in the deciding game of the semifinals last year, many still believed it wouldn’t be the last hurrah for the team’s longest-tenured player. Guard Kahleah Copper thought her veteran teammates — including Vandersloot, Allie Quigley and Candace Parker — would all re-sign to make amends for how their season ended in pursuit of a second straight WNBA title.
When Vandersloot looks back, she sees a team that did all it could — or at least she tries to convince herself of that.
“We did what we came to do,” she said. “We came together with that group, and we won a championship [in 2021]. We wanted to try and run it back, and we realized how freaking hard it is. It didn’t happen. I don’t think we overachieved. I don’t think we underachieved. I think it fell apart. We crumbled in the fourth quarter [of Game 5 against the Sun]. We had a great series. We probably should have won the series. We should have been in the finals, but we had seven bad minutes, and it ended that way. That was the way it was supposed to end, and that’s how I look at it.”
Did her time in Chicago need to end as abruptly as it did? There might never be a clear answer.
Regardless, Vandersloot is embracing the moment, back in Chicago under the oddest circumstances — as the opponent for Friday night’s game at Wintrust Arena.
Sitting courtside Thursday, wearing black and seafoam green practice gear, she struggled to describe her feelings. She has been anticipating this game for at least a week, but that doesn’t make it any more comfortable.
And discomfort, after all, is what Vandersloot was chasing when she decided to leave “home.”
“[Friday’s game] is going to be a rollercoaster for me,” she said.
