The Chicago Sky came into 2026 as a reconfigured team with a clear purpose. Out with the youth experiment. In with veterans who knew how to win. They signed Skylar Diggins, brought in DiJonai Carrington, and traded for Rickea Jackson. The blueprint was simple enough. The execution has been anything but.
After falling 85-68 to the expansion Toronto Tempo on Sunday to drop to 4-7, Skylar Diggins made clear in her postgame press conference that her frustration had moved past the polite kind. When a reporter asked about the half-court offensive execution, she did not hesitate. “That’s a Tyler question,” she said. “Ask Tyler.”
The two words hit differently because of what came before them. Skylar Diggins had already been candid about the team’s broader struggles, calling for more maturity and leadership across the roster and the staff. She went further on the rebounding side, telling reporters the Sky need to shed what she called a “loser mentality.” The redirect to coach Tyler Marsh was not vague frustration. It was a pointed, public separation of accountability.
Diggins described the experience of this stretch plainly. “It’s disappointing, it really is. It’s frustrating,” she said. “The games ain’t going to slow down, the teams are going to keep getting better. So we got to figure out how we’re going to turn this corner in here, but it’s been an extremely frustrating experience.”
Chicago is shooting 41.1% from the field and ranks 13th in the league in field goal percentage. Their 26.3% from three is among the worst in the WNBA. Against the Tempo, they shot 35.4% from the field and just 24% from deep, posting only 65 points against an expansion team playing its inaugural season. Three Sky players hit double digits, led by Azura Stevens with 18 points and 10 rebounds, while Diggins finished with seven points on 2-for-8 shooting.
Marsh took full ownership when asked about the offensive dysfunction and Diggins’ visible frustration. “I think the accountability starts there. Starts with me and ends with me, honestly,” he said. “I understand the frustration. There’s frustration across the board. Nobody’s happy with where we’re at, record-wise or how we’re playing, so I take the hit on that.”
He also addressed whether he and Skylar Diggins are still aligned. “I think we’re on the same page in terms of where we’re at as a team and what we know we’re capable of becoming,” Marsh said. “I don’t think she would be in a Sky jersey if we weren’t on that same page.” But a public deflection from a player of Diggins’ caliber, in her first season with the franchise, signals that the same-page narrative is under real pressure.
The Chicago Sky’s Organizational History Makes Skylar Diggins’ Frustration Harder To Dismiss
This is not a franchise with a clean track record of keeping its best players. Sylvia Fowles pushed her way out in 2015. Angel Reese was traded away last season. In a survey conducted by The Athletic, Sky players voted their own organization the worst-run in the league. Diggins is 14 years into her WNBA career. She did not come to Chicago to rebuild.
The injury timeline has not helped Marsh’s case. Rickea Jackson, the primary offseason acquisition traded from Los Angeles, is out for the season with a torn ACL. Carrington is also missing. Courtney Vandersloot remains sidelined. The team is asking its remaining veterans to carry a load that was designed to be shared, and the half-court offense is showing every crack of that strain.
Chicago hosts the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday before a brutal stretch that includes the Fever, the Liberty, and the Wings. If the Sky cannot stabilize their offensive structure against Atlanta, the 4-7 record will get worse fast. And if the divide between Skylar Diggins and the coaching staff grows more visible, the organization will face a much harder question than a losing streak. It has been down this road before. It never ends well.
