CHICAGO — The Sky’s year has gone far worse than their preseason expectations.
At 12–20, Chicago is poised to miss the playoffs for the second straight year, despite GM Jeff Pagliocca saying at the start of the season that the team was in “win–now” mode.
While their roster has been hammered by injuries, the team’s performance has still led to scrutiny on the front office, from trading Angel Reese in April to relinquishing control of their 2027 first-round pick by trading swap rights to the likely playoff-bound Washington Mystics.
But the team did find one of the league’s unlikeliest gems.
Sydney Taylor, a 24-year-old rookie, went undrafted out of college in 2024, and spent the next two seasons playing for teams in Lithuania and Poland.
She joined the Sky on a training camp contract in April, made the team out of camp, and her deal was converted to the WNBA minimum—$270,000 a year. That’s less than every 2026 first-round pick is making this year, but at 14.7 points per game, she’s scoring more than all of them except for Olivia Miles, who was taken at No. 2 overall with a pick that originally belonged to Chicago). Taylor has turned into the Sky’s No. 1 scoring option in recent weeks, averaging 20.3 points per game over her last eight.
“None of this was a surprise at all,” Pagliocca told Front Office Sports on Wednesday. “She doesn’t shy away. There’s a lot of great players that aren’t confident enough to take chances. I think that’s how she’s been able to separate herself.”
Her rise culminated in a game winning three over the defending champion Las Vegas Aces last week.
“That was everything to me,” Taylor said.
Needle In A Haystack
Pagliocca, who took over as Sky GM in 2023, vaguely remembers the first time he spotted Taylor at a USA 3×3 event two years ago. His notes were complimentary, but also mentioned her inefficient shooting at Louisville which kept her off draft boards: “Bigger guard who can create. Strong mechanically, off year this season?”
Taylor shot just 37% from the field and 31% from beyond the arc in her final college season, a drop off from 41% and 39%, respectively, over four seasons at UMass.
But Chicago first started to seriously consider Taylor in January, when it was unclear whether there would even be a WNBA season. She was playing for a Polish team when Pagliocca stumbled upon some of her game film.
It was a EuroCup game between Panathinaikos A.C., led by former Baylor star Sedona Prince, and Taylor’s MB Zaglebie Sosnowiec. Pagliocca doesn’t even recall why he was watching the film; the numerous prospect assessments, many spawned by pitches from agents lobbying for their talent, often blur together, he said.
But he couldn’t ignore Taylor. She dropped a season-high 38 points in the game, and won MVP of the top women’s league in Poland a few months later.
“Noticed her right away,” Pagliocca said. “It was the speed and the ability to create her own shot.”
The Sky guard said that there’s nothing vastly different about her game from playing overseas, but said she expanded her playmaking ability and versatility since they expected her to play the one through four. The additional responsibility helped her feel like she was at the top of her game after college.
“I think I’ve been at my best for the last couple years now, so I was just waiting for the right opportunity,” Taylor said.
She also credits the mental strides she made by playing in a region that spoke little English: “You got to make new friends, new people, learn new languages. So it’s definitely not easy, but it definitely makes me really appreciate and love the game of basketball.”
She says she heard of some interest from other WNBA teams when she was playing in Lithuania last year, but she couldn’t leave her contract midseason.
Paglioca said he was fortunate to have found Taylor before any other team, and is puzzled that he—or any other WNBA team—failed to see Taylor’s potential before this year.
“She played similar basketball,” Pagliocca said. “It makes me crazy to have missed out on a player at that point. It really makes you think about how many players are out there that could make an impact in our league.”
Advanced stats also show that Taylor is not just a classic “good stats, bad team” player. She has one of the team’s best on-off numbers, per Basketball Reference, and holds a huge gap over the rest of her teammates in Net Points and Wins Above Replacement Player, according to ESPN Analytics.
And the rest of the league has taken notice. On Saturday, Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White said Taylor is “at the top of the list” of the league’s best shotmakers.
“I thought her ability to knock down that shot to beat Vegas showed the mentality that she has, and she’s going to be a dangerous player in this league for a long time,” White said.
Fortunately for the Sky, Taylor will likely remain in Chicago for the foreseeable future. She will be a reserved free agent this offseason, which gives the Sky her exclusive negotiating rights.
Taylor is practically guaranteed to make more than the minimum next year. The Sky can offer her any contract amount, from the one-year league minimum to a max contract that starts at $1.3 million in 2027. And her timeline aligns with the rest of the team’s young core, including Kamilla Cardoso (25), Rickea Jackson (25), and Gabriella Jaquez (22).
“We feel like with the addition of Sydney, we have a young core that can go toe-to-toe with anybody in the league,” Pagliocca said.
Taylor’s emergence far from exonerates Pagliocca from several questionable gambles, and he still has little margin for error with the fanbase over the next few years as he continues his win-now mandate. But Taylor is a lifeline with a ceiling high enough to provide some hope.
