The 2026 WNBA Finals between the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries have been all about defense. It’s a duel of the newly crowned DPOY and the runner-up and two top-three defensive teams. Low scoring, inefficient shooting, and defensive plays defined the first two games.
Both times, the team with the best scorer in the game won. In Game 1, Gabby Williams scored a game-high 26 points to lead the Valkyries to a four-point victory. The next game, Angel Reese exploded for a historic 30-point double-double, and the Dream secured a 14-point win on the Valkyries’ home court.
Williams and Reese are currently the favorites to win Finals MVP for their respective teams and have shown why. When they have big games, their teams are difficult to beat.
There are plenty of WNBA teams that should watch this year’s finals matchup with regret, whether it be for passing on Reese in the draft, waiving Veronica Burton and Kaila Charles, or giving up Allisha Gray and Jordin Canada for pennies.
But no organization should feel as much regret as the Chicago Sky. The Sky had both Reese and Williams in their system but could not hold on to either because they were unhappy with how the organization was run. Now, they are both thriving and winning elsewhere, while the Sky have to figure out how to recover from three bad seasons and bad trades that cost them two lottery picks.
The Sky Fumbled the Two Biggest Stars in the Finals
When Reese became publicly frustrated with the Sky organization after two years of losing and bad roster moves, it really wasn’t anything new. Plenty of other top picks and stars before her had been unhappy in Chicago, forced their way out, and immediately thrived elsewhere.
The Sky had enough faith in Reese to trade up for her in the draft two years ago. However, they simply couldn’t build an environment that allowed Reese to thrive—or win. The latter prompted Reese to voice her frustrations publicly, and the Sky chose to suspend her for half a game. She sat out the rest of the season with an injury. The Sky ultimately lost her and the pick the Minnesota Lynx used on Olivia Miles, the unanimous Rookie of the Year, for what will be two late first-round picks.
Williams is one of the many players who clashed with the Sky before Reese even entered the picture. The Sky drafted her fourth overall in 2018, never quite figured out how to maximize her talent, and didn’t like her commitment to playing for the French national team.
In 2021, the Sky suspended Williams’s contract and traded her to the Sparks because of her overseas commitments, even though, as Alissa Hirsh of the Chicago Sun-Times put it, “Williams thought she’d reached an agreement with the Sky that she didn’t have to show up to training camp.” The two-time All-Star has since made her frustration over her time in Chicago very public.
Fumbling perhaps the two most important players in a finals matchup in that way is a bad look for the Sky and only furthers Chicago’s reputation as one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the W.
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