Angel Reese is as unfiltered as they come. After the second consecutive season in which the Chicago Sky finished as bottom dwellers in the WNBA, Reese had had enough with the management. “I’m not settling for the same s−−− we did this year,” Reese told the Tribune. “We have to get good players. We have to get great players. That’s a non-negotiable for me.” A bold cry for help from the sophomore forward who has carried them on her back for the entire season. And now a WNBA insider has urged the franchise to make some moves along those lines.

After Reese made those comments, the corporate chain of command basically forced her to apologize. The press release deemed her comments “detrimental to the team” while suspending her for half of the Las Vegas Aces game on September 7. While the apology was a band-aid to the wound, it’s really a temporary clean-up rather than a long-term fix, and Terrika Foster-Brasby called the Sky organization to do a deep cleanse before the 2026 season begins. 

While talking about Chicago’s 2026 draft strategy, Foster disregarded it altogether, saying, “I don’t think that needs to be their focus. Like, they honestly need to be focusing on cleaning up the organization as it currently stands and not focused on draft 2026. You’ve got to make sure that you can keep Angel and Kamilla happy. You need to be wondering about what’s gonna happen with the roster you currently have.”

Angel Reese is ready to move away if the management doesn’t meet her demands. “I’d like to be here for my career, but if things don’t pan out, obviously I might have to move in a different direction and do what’s best for me,” she told the Tribune. And suspending her for speaking her mind probably increased the tension between Jeff Pagliocca and the franchise and Reese. Coach Tyler Marsh called it a “top-down organizational decision,” while the team said they’d “handled it internally.” Elizabeth Williams was punished for supporting her, according to the fans. 

Kamilla Cardoso is the second of the “twin towers” that the Sky is looking to stand on. If Reese leaves for a better team,  Cardoso could soon follow, and suddenly, Chicago is even worse than when they started 2024.  Even beyond those two, the Sky has a decision coming up regarding their current crop of players, as Foster pointed out. 

The Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire have paid $50 million and a reported $125 million, respectively, to earn their place in the 2026 WNBA season. Like the Valkyries chose the rights to one available player from each team to build its initial roster, the two new teams will likely take 1 player from 11 out of the 13 teams, making it two possible players Chicago loses. That is apart from their ‘core’ 6 players, but who are they? Beyond Cardoso and Reese, the Sky doesn’t have its base apart from those two. 

The Ariel Atkins signing hasn’t gone the way they want. She was expected to bring results, but there haven’t been any. While Courtney Vandersloot said age is not a factor, and that she is coming back, an ACL injury at 36 is tough to recover from. And like Reese said, “I know she’ll be a great asset for us, but we can’t rely on that. We need someone, probably a little younger with some experience, somebody who’s been playing the game and is willing to compete for a championship and has done it before.” Sloot might come back and be the legend she was, but the Sky management has to make plans otherwise. And on top of roster changes, should the Chicago Sky also look at personnel changes in the front office?

Is It Time To Look Beyond Jeff Pagliocca After Angel Reese Criticism?

It was October 2023, and the Chicago Sky had lost the first round of the playoffs 0-2 to the Las Vegas Aces by a cumulative 50 points. That was considered a huge disappointment at the time as it was the team’s worst finish in two years. Then, coach and GM  James Wade left for an assistant job at the Toronto Raptors. In came Jeff Pagliocca and Teresa Weatherspoon to take his place. 

Wade had already started the shortsighted nature of their scouting by bringing in Marina Mabrey for two first-round picks and first-rounders swap rights. If that wasn’t enough, Leonie Fiebich went out the door. When Pagliocca came in, he just carried on that tendency.

He traded the one piece that remained of their 2021 championship-winning core, Kahleah Copper, to Phoenix. To move up and draft Angel Reese at No. 7 in 2024, Chicago traded with the Lynx and included a 2026 first-round pick swap. Fast forward to April 2025, the Sky then sent a future first-round draft pick outright to Minnesota to acquire the No. 11 pick in the 2025 draft. Pagliocca fired Weatherspoon after only a year and hired an inexperienced Tyler Marsh. 

That is after trading away the No.3 pick for Ariel Atkins. The No.3 turned out to be Sonia Citron, just the kind of outside dagger Sky could have paired with Cardoso and Reese. It was a win-now move for a team that wasn’t quite ready to. However, Sabreena Merchant has spoken in his defense, saying, “I also believed in some of Chicago’s vision.” 

Merchant was with Pagliocca in every move apart from the Atkins trade, “Mortgaging the future to that extent (the asset cost was No. 3 in 2025 and a first-round swap in the 2027 draft) is only acceptable for an MVP, and Atkins is not that.” With the “We Want Nola” movement, the Sky fans want Marsh out just as much as Pagliocca. 

Merchant believes, “It’s unlikely Chicago parts ways with Pagliocca so early in his tenure, as this is only his second season, but he has to be on thin ice.” That was from August 6, and things have unraveled further since. If Angel Reese is thinking of moving out, that might be a final straw for Pagliocca and Marsh. Reese is the player to build the franchise on, and she is comfortably the best player on their team. There is a possibility that Reese forces Pagliocca out, but as of now, that remains a speculation.