Another playoff-less season has left the Chicago Sky with more questions than answers. The was their thrid consecutive playoff miss since former head coach Teresa Weatherspoon failed to take the Sky to a playoff for the first time in five years in 2024. However, this time general manager Jeff Pagliocca is stepping forward to defend their Tyler Marsh decision.
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The Chicago Sky front office has decided that Tyler Marsh will reamin the team’s head coach. Despite the Sky finishing 16-28, Pagliocca believes the second-year coach deserves more time.
“Tyler played a critical part in us landing all of those players in free agency. I think it was going to be incredibly unfair to judge someone who has yet to play with healthy rosters as a young coach.”
Pagliocca said during his exit presser, according to Front Office Sports’ Colin Salao.
In 2025, Marsh led the Sky to a 10-34 finish, tying for the WNBA’s worst record. And with this season’s slightly improved 16-28 finish, he now has an overall record of 26-62, translating to a .295 winning percentage over two seasons.
However, true to what Jeff Pagliocca said, Tyler Marsh has faced an extremely challenging, injury-plagued tenure since being hired as the Chicago Sky head coach.
In 2025, top star Courtney Vandersloot suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament. This season, cornerstone player Rickea Jackson also went down with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, compounding earlier absences from key starters such as Skylar Diggins, Azurá Stevens, and DiJonai Carrington.
Yet, things played out differently for Teresa Weatherspoon in 2024. That year, Weatherspoon was handed a roster widely projected to finish low. Following similar roster turnovers and a wave of injuries to key players, she managed a 13-27 record. Following the result, she was fired.
Before 2024, the last time the Chicago Sky missed the playoffs was in 2018, when the team decided to move on from Weatherspoon. Speaking on the decision, Pagliocca even made it clear that the organisation was looking in a different direction.
“We just want to make sure that we’re continuing our quest for a championship, being in the playoffs every single season.”
The reality that has followed that statement, with the Sky now missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons, certainly raises questions about whether Pagliocca’s decision to replace Weatherspoon delivered what the organisation was seeking in the first place.
Instead of returning to the postseason, the Sky have gone through another difficult stretch, with Marsh now holding a 26-62 record across his first two seasons.
It therefore seems like the lens of scrutiny is now narrowing onto Pagliocca himself, even without the question of the head coach. Aside from his hiring decisions, which have delivered a 39-89 record during his tenure, there have also been several other front-office decisions that have sparked significant debate around the franchise.
The Sonia Citron trade is one of them. The Chicago Sky traded away the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft, which became All-Star rookie Sonia Citron, along with additional draft assets to acquire veteran guard Ariel Atkins. Failing to reach a contract extension with Chennedy Carter after her breakout season was also decision that raised questions.
Perhaps the decision that generated the most frustration among Chicago Sky fans was the fractured relationship with franchise cornerstone Angel Reese. It culminated in a late-season team suspension and eventually her departure from the team. Right before the 2026 season tipped off, Pagliocca traded Reese to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for future draft assets.
That decision was criticised heavily by analysts and also sparked a wave of frustration from fans, who demonstrated their displeasure across social media, including by unfollowing the Sky’s accounts in significant numbers. Specifically, the Chicago Sky lost over 10,000 Instagram followers, and the Atlanta Dream instantly gained 18,000 followers overnight.
With Jeff Pagliocca and the Sky front office choosing to stick with Marsh, only the 2027 WNBA season will show whether the organization has made the right call.