Natasha Cloud Puts Positive Spin on Sky Struggles After Loss in Angel Reese Return
Skylar Diggins didn’t hold back after the Chicago Sky’s 85-68 loss to the Toronto Tempo on the weekend. She called for more maturity and leadership from players and coaches alike and did nothing to hide her frustration.
It was a wake-up call for the team, according to Natasha Cloud. While it didn’t lead to a win—the Sky lost their eighth game of the season, 82-75, to the Atlanta Dream in Angel Reese’s return to Chicago—Cloud noted that it led to better effort and focus, which could save the Sky’s season.
“We responded today,” Cloud said in the postgame media availability, per the Sky’s YouTube channel. “We’re not happy with the loss. I’ll never be happy with a loss…But what we all said in that locker room is, if we play this hard this consistently and we can fix those seven minutes, those controllable factors for us, we’re going to be in a really good position post All-Star.”
The fact that the players still have a positive is a good sign, but the Sky face a Herculean task now: They have to actually string together some wins to make Cloud’s optimistic outlook a reality.
Turning things around will be an uphill battle, but it’s not impossible
The Sky gave up assets and young players—the draft picks that turned into Sonia Citron and Olivia Miles, and Angel Reese—to go from a young rebuilding team years away from title contention to a veteran-heavy squad with win-now aspirations.
Citron and Reese have already been All-Stars, and Miles has been the best rookie in the W this season by a lot. That’s a hefty price to pay only to end up with another losing team. Injuries play a big role, of course. Chicago was winning before Rickea Jackson tore her ACL. But injuries are a part of pro sports, and losing a 25-year-old who’s never been an All-Star shouldn’t derail your entire season with players like Diggins, Cloud, Kamilla Cardoso, and Azura Stevens still on the roster.
Missing the playoffs for the third straight season would be a disaster, and it’s still very much a possibility despite Cloud’s positive spin on the situation. The Sky are currently twelfth in the standings, and it will take a lot of work to catch up with the teams in the lower half of the playoff picture. This year’s playoff race already promises to be a bloodbath. Missing the playoffs would be a disaster for ten teams in the league. That alone will leave two teams disappointed, but the success of both expansion teams makes the situation even more complicated, and the Sky are right in the middle of it all.
This wouldn’t be the first time the Sky bounced back from a horrible start to the season, though. Chicago got off to a 4-7 start in the 2021 season and then went on to win the championship. While the Sky are unlikely to win a championship this season, that past experience proves that nothing is lost just yet.
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Elaine Blum covers women’s basketball for On SI from Europe. She has been writing about women's hoops since 2023 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism and a master’s degree in American Studies with a focus on women’s and gender studies. She started playing basketball when she was 10 years old and won several league and state championships at the youth and senior level.