The Chicago Sky’s season hasn’t gone according to plan as the team will miss the playoffs for the third year in a row.
On Tuesday, the Sky announced that marquee free agent signing Skylar Diggins would miss the remainder of the 2026 season due to a knee injury that’s kept her out since July 3. Hours later, Diggins held a press conference, where she shared she’s been nursing the injury all season.
She also said that her “biggest frustration” of the season was not having a consistent “home base” all year, which she expected would come when she signed a two-year, $1.86 million contract with Chicago. The Sky’s new $60 million practice facility was supposed to be ready by the start of the season, but was pushed back several times before the team announced in July that it would not be ready until after the season.
“I think a lot of us were promised that,” Diggins said. “We thought that was going to be the case.” The Sky also signed free agents Azurá Stevens and DiJonai Carrington this offseason and re-signed several others, including Rachel Banham, one of Diggins’s closest friends.
The team practiced in several different locations this year, including several Chicago colleges and Wintrust Arena, where they play their home games. According to documents obtained by FOS, the Sky paid $160,000 to practice at the University of Illinois in Chicago for about a month between April and May.
Diggins, 36, said not having their own practice space affected how players could train: “Sometimes, we have limits or restrictions on how many hours we can be there, and that affects everything.”
She also said new amenities will likely help the Sky with injury management; Chicago leads the league in games missed due to injury this season.
“No shade, but you know we need resources. Obviously leading the league in injuries, I think it’s not coincidental,” Diggins said.
Diggins expects the team to be able to use its practice facility next year, which will be located in Bedford Park, IL, a Chicagoland suburb just outside the city’s southwest border. She said the team is touring the facility next week to see the progress made.
“I expect that next year, we won’t lead the league in games missed to injuries,” Diggins said. “And we’ll be able to put together the full vision of what we wanted it to look like with all those resources.”
Asked by FOS whether she would’ve signed with the Sky if she knew the facility would not be ready this year, Diggins said: “That’s hard to say. … I understand how those things go as far as you know delays or whatever the case may be, or how it could be very nuanced as far as things that are out of your control.”
Future in Chicago
Diggins started the team’s first 19 games, and Chicago went 6–13. Head coach Tyler Marsh then decided to bring Diggins off the bench for their July 7 game against the Phoenix Mercury for the first time in her 11-year career. But it never happened. Diggins was ruled out before the game due to her knee injury and has not played since.
Asked whether Marsh’s decision played a factor in her not playing, Diggins said it was “extremely layered,” saying she had already been rehabbing her surgically repaired knee even before the season started.
But she said that there weren’t any conversations with the organization about her fulfilling a bench role.
“We haven’t had any conversation on that being the case,” Diggins said, adding: “We’ve had a lot of conversations since then to reflect with both Tyler and I, [Sky GM Jeff Pagliocca] and I, the organization, [team owner] Michael Alter, and just trying to continue to work in lockstep about what this process would look like. But obviously, early in the season and now, it’s been a frustrating experience for a lot of us and what we felt like the season could look like for our team versus what it turned out to be.”
Diggins said she has not had any conversations about a trade elsewhere and expects to be with the Sky next year.
“I haven’t expressed any desire to not talk about me in a Chicago Sky jersey next year,” Diggins said.
The Sky, 15–25, have four games remaining after the FIBA World Cup break.
