NFL
By: Stephen Garner
The imminent return of 2021 WNBA Finals MVP Kahleah Copper received a lot more clarity regarding her 2022 debut.
As per the Chicago Sky PR staff this morning, they announced the team would be releasing Tina KrajiΕ‘nik, and have activated Kahleah Copper.
We have activated Kahleah Copper and released Tina KrajiΕ‘nik pic.twitter.com/2aepnTxpGc
— Chicago Sky (@chicagosky) May 20, 2022
She’s now officially stalted to rejoin the team and return as early as Sunday in D.C. vs the surging Mystics.
The Sky are currently 2-2 and amidst a three-game road trip (@ MIN, @ SEA, @ WAS) where they’ve gone 1-1, having lost most recently in a collectively underwhelming performance.
Ironically, it was a matchup that, more than any other in this early portion of the schedule, keyed in on just how valuable Copper’s dynamic is.
The Sky desperately needed more paint touches and rim pressure in their 74-71 loss on Tuesday vs the Storm.Β
Forcing rotations from their defense from the point of attack to either generate self-created looks, or occupy help defenders’ attention is what was needed most. It would’ve, subsequently, opened up the kick to open players for shots or second drives, allowing them to play in flow of read and react, rather than trying to pick apart their solid halfcourt defense with the pass, evident by the uncharacteristic 17 turnovers.
All that was described in the stanza above is quite literally what Copper embodies.
Coming into her seventh season, she’ll see the best-compiled roster she will have been a part of in her career, a group that supplements her with a great opportunity to follow up on the most successful season of her career thus far.
The floor is (more than) viably spaced, littering her with ample driving angles and points of pressure to attack. She has running mates to join her 100-meter dash-like fastbreak initiation in Evans and Gardner. Multiple, extremely versatile screeners in Parker and Stevens of course, but also new acquisition Emma Meesseman, and rookie Ruthy Hebard.
Excluding the rookie Hebard, each of the former three presents plenty of ability to pop when drop coverage is applied to Copper to counter her inevitable rack attacks, as well as short roll into release valve space to then play make whenever opposing frontcourt players are closer to the level or even put two on her.Β
Even more, the demand on her defensively is lessened as they’ve added two viable and ever-active defenders in the aforementioned Messeeman and Gardner, to wreak havoc in passing lanes on the ball in varying scenarios. Add to that the versatility of their frontcourt pieces (including Meesseman) to move their feet with active hands at (or near) the level of ball screens, hedging, or even blitzing to jump ball handlers, and you the see field of pure potentiality the Chicago Sky are playing in, especially with the engine to their attack back in the fold.
In 2021, Copper averaged 14.4 points per game on 45.9/30.6/81.8 shooting. In their 10-game playoff showing, she scored 17.7 points per on 52/34.4/79.1.
Along with the Sky in their quest to defend the crown, she’s set a high bar for herself. On brand, both she and they expect nothing less than time on task in achieving and exceeding these aspirations.
I’m looking forward to seeing her reintegration into the fold under coach James Wade, as well as the meshing of her many dynamics and intangibles with what we’ve seen early in this iteration of the Chicago Sky.
On paper and in theory, it seems as though they’ve positioned themselves to be better than last season’s version, both with internal developments of talents as well as via the aforementioned acquisitions.
As the hypothesizing subsides and we get to (finally) assess the on-court product, rest assured that the Sky will have a different energy about themselves collectively with their MVP Kahleah Copper back and better than ever before.
