How the Marina Mabrey trade paints a messy picture of the Chicago Sky

The Sky traded Mabrey to the Connecticut Sun in return for two rotation players: guards Rachel Banham and Moriah Jefferson. They also received a 2025 first-round draft pick and the right to swap the 2026 first-round pick they’d previously acquired from the Phoenix Mercury with Connecticut. Connecticut also received the Sky’s 2025 second-round draft pick in the deal.

“Marina has made a significant impact over the past two seasons with the Sky behind her scoring ability, playmaking, competitiveness and commitment to the community,” Chicago Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca said in a press release. “We appreciate all of her contributions to the organization and wish her continued success in the league.”

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Trade solidifies new core but makes playoff push harder

To start with the positives, the trade helps clear up the Sky’s scoring hierarchy.

Mabrey began the season as the team’s top scoring option, with guard Chennedy Carter coming off the bench. Now Carter has emerged as a clear centerpiece. Since joining the starting lineup on June 16, she’s been the Sky’s best closer and ranks seventh in the WNBA in scoring at 19.1 points per game. 

By dealing Mabrey for rotational players and draft assets, the roster becomes more complementary to Weatherspoon’s vision on offense.

Weatherspoon wants to lead a paint-dominant, inside-out team. Carter and rookie bigs Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso are at the center of that. Adding catch-and-shoot players around them like Banham and Jefferson will help punish defenses for packing the paint.

In the short term, though, the move will likely hurt the Sky’s chances of making the playoffs. Banham and Jefferson are unlikely to combine to replace Mabrey’s impact. Banham is averaging 4.8 points and 1.2 rebounds per game, and Jefferson is recovering from ankle surgery. Mabrey was averaging 14.0 points per game and consistently taking on challenging defensive assignments. 

“What I’m most proud of is how she’s defending,” Weatherspoon told reporters before Mabrey’s last game in a Sky uniform on July 16 game against the Las Vegas Aces. “She’s putting that effort of wanting to guard the best every single night.”

The Sky enter the Olympic break in eighth place, which would qualify them for the last playoff spot. But two teams behind them in the standings — the Atlanta Dream and Dallas Wings — will get some of their best players back from injury after the break.

Adding another shooter before the Aug. 20 trade deadline would go a long way in helping the Sky make a push for the playoffs.

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Adding a first-round draft pick strengthens Sky’s hand only slightly

Given that the Sun are currently in second place in the league, the Sky will likely end up with a late first-round pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft.¹ That’s helpful in the long run, but it’s not a home run. The trajectory of the franchise depends more on what happens with the Sky’s other 2025 first-round pick.

The Dallas Wings currently own the right to swap 2025 first-round picks with the Sky. That means if the Wings make the playoffs and the Sky don’t, the Sky will send a lottery pick to Dallas (in return for a mid-first-round pick).

For the Sky to end up with a lottery pick, both the Wings and the Sky have to miss the playoffs.² That scenario might be the best long-term outcome. Combine a lottery pick with a late first-round pick from Connecticut, and the Sky will have important bargaining chips for their rebuild.

Is this the end of a vicious cycle?

It’s now clear that the Sky intend to build around Carter, Reese and Cardoso. If this trio sticks together and if the front office adds the right pieces around them, there is a path to title contention.

That’s a lot of “ifs” for one sentence, though. Carter is a restricted free agent after this season and will be in high demand after her breakout year, though the Sky will have the right to match any other offer and retain her. And acquiring Reese and Cardoso came at a steep cost.

To draft Reese, the Sky traded away several talented young players (Julie Allemand, Li Yueru and Sika Koné). They also gave away the swap rights to their own 2026 draft pick.

To draft Cardoso, the team traded away Copper, who is having an MVP-caliber season with the Mercury.

This vicious cycle began with a risky trade by former head coach and general manager James Wade. To bring in Mabrey, Wade gave up first-round draft picks in 2023 and 2024; swap rights to the Sky’s 2025 first-round pick; and the rights to Leonie Fiebich, who is excelling for the New York Liberty.

Now that Mabrey and Wade are gone, one might wonder: Have the Sky finally escaped the cycle? Or are risky gambles endemic to an organization that has fallen behind in investing in the player experience?

Pagliocca’s tenure as general manager will help answer this question.

So far, Pagliocca has recouped important draft assets via trade. But it was the organization’s inability to sign any marquee free agents — in part due to its lack of investment in top-tier facilities — that led to Copper demanding a trade in the first place. Pagliocca has been playing off his back foot, not from a position of strength.

Then there’s the deal with the Minnesota Lynx to ensure the Sky would get to select Reese at No. 7 in the 2024 draft. Because Reese has been a walking double-double in her rookie season, Sky fans have likely forgotten that trading up for her meant giving away swap rights to the Sky’s 2026 first-round pick. But if success takes longer than expected and the Sky miss the chance to draft a superstar in 2026, fans will connect the dots.

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Why did Mabrey request the trade?

A midseason trade request often signals some kind of discord. But if there were locker room issues, they didn’t show on the court.

Mabrey’s teammates described her as a leader. And Weatherspoon played Mabrey more minutes than anyone else, even through Carter’s emergence. (A notable exception was on July 2 against Atlanta, when Mabrey was benched and Carter took over in clutch time.)

Until Mabrey comments on her motives, one can only speculate. It’s possible that Carter’s emergence as the top option bothered Mabrey. But the two played well together, with Mabrey often feeding Carter on the break. In fact, Mabrey gave Carter more assists than any other Sky player did except for Lindsay Allen, a true point guard. And in Connecticut, Mabrey may not even start, much less be the go-to scorer. So it’s not clear that a clash of egos was at play.

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Related reading: Marina Mabrey makes the Connecticut Sun a legitimate championship contender

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Maybe the trade request signals a competitive restlessness from Mabrey, willing to accept a smaller role to compete for a championship. This is the second time in three years that she is requesting to leave a team. (The first time was in Dallas after the 2022 season; that deal brought her to Chicago.)

Maybe it’s evidence of the Sky’s new leadership failing to inspire the league’s more valuable players.

Or maybe her abrupt departure simply represents a mutual acknowledgment that times have changed.

When Mabrey arrived in Chicago in 2023, the Sky were coming off their best two-year stretch in franchise history. Though the 2021 WNBA championship core had disbanded, the Sky had retained Copper and signed capable veterans such as Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith. Mabrey was expecting to compete for a championship, while the Sky were expecting her to evolve into a superstar.

But over the next 12 months, Copper, Williams and Smith all left. Mabrey improved her defense and floor game but didn’t make the jump to superstar. The Sky hired a new head coach and general manager who have staked the future on their two rookies.

Mabrey found herself caught between two eras. A clean break may help the new era take shape, both for Mabrey and for Weatherspoon’s Sky.

But for the Sky front office, it should also force a reflection on the rocky path that got them here.

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1. The four teams that fail to make the playoffs enter a lottery to determine who gets picks Nos. 1-4. The teams that make the playoffs draft in reverse order of the previous season’s standings, meaning the eighth-place team selects fifth and the first-place team selects last. ↩︎
2. In that scenario, the Sky could end up with a pick as high as No. 2. ↩︎