With the Sky Falling in Chicago, Is Tyler Marsh on the Hot Seat?

After Skylar Diggins spoke candidly of a “loser mentality” over the weekend, it’s time to take a harder look at what’s going on with this team.

The Sky, who virtually revamped their roster in the condensed offseason, have lost seven of their last eight games after a 4–1 start to the season. | Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Skylar Diggins did not hold back. 

After the Sky lost 85–68 to the Tempo on Saturday, the veteran guard used the postgame press conference as a chance to air out some frustrations. 

“We gotta have more maturity and more leadership on and off the floor,” Diggins said. “If it was just versus one team, I’d understand that, but now it’s been struggles. That’s a trend of ours. ... The games ain’t gonna slow down, and teams gone keep getting better and better around us, so we gotta figure out how we’re gonna turn this corner here. It's been an extremely frustrating experience.”

Later, when asked about offensive execution and what the message was in the locker room, Diggins deflected and told the media that those questions were for coach Tyler Marsh. She also described a “loser mentality” taking over the team. 

Since that press conference, the Sky have lost to the Dream at home—fittingly, it was Angel Reese’s first game back in Chicago since being traded this spring. And after an impressive 4–1 start to the season, the Sky have dropped seven of their last eight games. 

So do we need to follow Diggins’s lead and take a look at the head coach? Our staff dissects what exactly is the issue in Chicago. 

This is Tyler Marsh’s second season as head coach of the Sky. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

Is Tyler Marsh on the Hot Seat? 

Clare Brennan: The short answer is yes. Marsh appears to have lost the locker room, or at least lost a critical piece of it in Diggins. She not only spoke about her broader frustrations with the team’s performance but also called out Marsh by name during the postgame press conference following the Sky’s loss to the Tempo. In that same media availability, Marsh downplayed any strife. “I think we’re on the same page in terms of where we’re at as a team and where we know we’re capable of getting as a team,” Marsh said. “I don’t think she would be in a Sky jersey if we weren’t on that same page.” 

Diggins’s frustrations are valid. Chicago looks lost, especially after Rickea Jackson incurred a season-ending ACL injury on May 17. The Sky have one of the worst offenses in the league—only the Storm and Sun have a lower-rated offense—averaging 80.6 points per game (13th in the league). There are major issues with player development and on-court execution, and much of that falls at Marsh’s feet. However, the Sky have bigger issues that go beyond the team’s head coach. The franchise has historically been plagued by mismanagement and high turnover. Marsh is the Sky’s fourth coach since 2023, taking over after Theresa Weatherspoon was fired in 2024 following just one season with the team. Players have cycled through Chicago as well, with the 2026 roster nearly a complete overhaul from the 2025 squad. Angel Reese, a former first-round draft pick and presumed franchise player, was dealt to the Dream during the Sky’s offseason revamp. This season’s flashy rebuild, which brought in Diggins, Jackson and Natasha Cloud, appears to be the latest in a string of hasty moves by Chicago. What’s happening in the Windy City can’t be papered over, and the franchise needs to tear everything down to the studs, invest in the team and start slowly building a new, winning culture. 

Dan Falkenheim: Clare, I agree with what you said about the Sky’s bigger issues. I do think that Chicago tried to reset its culture this year, though it was done overnight and with veteran acquisitions. Time will tell how soon that winning culture can be built, and whether Diggins’s comments help build that foundation or simply expose cracks that can’t be fixed easily.

I’ll give the long answer first to the original question first. Injuries have put Marsh in an unenviable situation in back-to-back seasons. Last year, Courtney Vandersloot tore her ACL in the Sky’s seventh game, and Chicago had to make do with Rachel Banham at point guard, no true floor general and few three-point shooters. This year, the Sky lost Jackson, their leading scorer, four games in and have had to reorient their offense on the fly. It is hard enough to welcome new pieces into the fold during the league’s compressed preseason window. It’s much harder to do that as the season is ongoing. 

All Marsh can be expected to do is make the best of the pieces available to him. How well those pieces actually fit together and whether he is currently making the most of them—even taking injuries into account—are open questions. Azurá Stevens and Kamilla Cardoso are not a plus defensive pairing; Diggins and Cloud occupy somewhat similar roles. Finding the best combination of at least three of those players and unlocking the team’s best play isn’t a clear-cut task.

Still, to Clare’s point, the offense should be better, and Sunday’s loss to the Tempo might’ve been the team’s worst showing yet in the halfcourt. Three of the Sky’s last four losses have also come by at least 17 points. Losses of that magnitude veer into concerning territory. So, yes, Marsh is on the hot seat. That doesn’t mean he’ll stay on it. Even though Chicago lost, the team’s improved offensive performance against a tough Dream defense on Tuesday was a step in the right direction. He’ll need to continue to search for ways to squeeze more out of this group; otherwise, the Sky will be in danger of enduring its longest playoff drought in more than a decade.

Angel Reese had 17 points and 17 rebounds against her former team on Tuesday. | Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Blake Silverman: Like Clare and Dan, I agree that Marsh is on the hot seat. However, I think the biggest problem for the Sky looms large: Chicago needs a true superstar. That’s the hardest question to answer and the largest need to fill for any team, but the Sky dealt the closest player they had to a superstar in Reese over the offseason (who helped the Dream hand Chicago its seventh loss in eight games with 17 points and 17 rebounds on Tuesday). To be fair to general manager Jeff Pagliocca, Jackson was looking like a star who provided the Sky with a scoring punch they needed before she went down with a torn ACL.

Diggins and Cloud can bring the offense, but at 35 and 34 years old, respectively, neither is the organization’s face of the future. Cardoso has grown into one of the W’s most dominant forces near the rim, but the Sky need a much more talented roster in order to compete. And that’s glaring after the unfortunate injury luck to start the year. As Clare brought up, Chicago has turned over its roster in a short period of time amid a long cycle of comings and goings. Maybe that will change when the Sky’s shiny new practice facility finally opens. On April 30, Pagliocca said its doors will open late spring or early summer, but we’re still waiting. Teams across the league have long outdone—to say the least—Chicago in terms of facilities and amenities. That’s a tough sell for a big free agent, but the Sky have until the offseason to up the organization’s free-agent pitches.

I wouldn’t expect a big trade for the Sky ahead of the Aug. 2 trade deadline because, well, we never really see big trades at the deadline. Plus, at 4–8, Chicago is well on its way to be out of contention at that point anyway. But, the franchise is setting itself up for yet another blockbuster deal in the offseason, likely using one or both of Diggins and Vandersloot’s contracts plus a first-round pick (Chicago has its own and Atlanta’s in 2027) to add a core piece next to Jackson and Cardoso. That will only happen if the franchise is ready to compete now, which is a big if. For better or for worse, the Sky have a record of making win-now moves and reshaping the roster on a dime. With such a clear need for more starpower after what’s bound to be a forgettable season, another move feels like it’s on the horizon.

Emma Baccellieri: Count me in: I, too, believe that Marsh is on the hot seat and that Chicago’s issues go far deeper than coaching. The biggest question here strikes me as one about organizational philosophy. What do the Sky want? As Blake noted above, this is a team with a tradition of big swings and quick roster makeovers. But I think it’s getting increasingly difficult for Chicago to pull off those kinds of moves. The league has changed. Other franchises simply offer more in terms of the player experience. (The Sky are trying to catch up with their new practice facility, but again, like Blake said, the specifics there remain to be seen.) And this is about more than simply a place to practice. It’s about how the organization treats its players and builds a sustainable winning roster. 

There’s a remarkably large group of stars who have either forced a trade or left of their own accord over the years. Even if you leave out the apparently-desired-by-both-sides Reese trade from this spring, you have Sylvia Fowles, Elena Delle Donne, Gabby Williams, Candace Parker and Kahleah Copper. That’s obviously not all on current management. (This is only the third season for Jeff Pagliocca as GM.) But it shows a track record here that does not look very encouraging for players with choices about where to go. WNBA players historically did not have much of a choice here. But as the structure of the league has become more forgiving to active free-agency periods, and as teams have begun differentiating themselves in terms of amenities and playing experience, that has changed. It will be much harder in this era for Chicago to convince star players to buy in for a quick transformation. 

Hypothetically, that should mean playing the long game instead, building the roster back up with draft capital. That would have been much easier had they not traded away the picks that became Sonia Citron and Olivia Miles. Simply put, there are many problems here, and there is no quick fix. Any serious organizational change will likely have to start all the way up at the top. But in the meantime? Marsh has been dealt a difficult hand, yes, but he’s also not playing it as well as he could be. 

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