The Chicago Sky and Las Vegas Aces meet Sunday in WNBA action at the IMG Academy.
The Chicago Sky are coming off a solid 20-win season that ended in a tight loss in the second round of the WNBA playoffs. The Sky are a sleeper to make a run to the WNBA Finals, as they have a nice young nucleus of Diamond DeShields, Gabby Williams and Azurá Stevens, and they also have the veterans such as Allie Quigley and Courtney Vandersloot. There’s a nice mixture on this Sky roster and keeping most of the team intact from a year ago could be a major advantage with so many other teams either losing players to trade / are agency or simply having playing sit out the season. The Chicago Sky are a team to keep a close eye on this season and are probably even worth a future bet as well.
The Las Vegas Aces won 21 games last season and came up short in the WNBA semifinals. It’s going to be an interesting season for the Aces, as one of the best players in the league in Liz Cambage and their star young gun in Kelsey Plum have decided to sit out the season. Those are two massive blows to a Las Vegas team that had potential title hopes entering this season. On the flip side, A’ja Wilson is a MVP candidate with everything she brings to the table and the Aces did add a star scorer in Angel McCoughtry, assuming she can stay healthy. Kayla McBride is also one of the better shooters in the league and Dearica Hamby has shown what she can do in an expanded role. The Las Vegas Aces could be title favorites if Cambage and Plum were active, but this is still an intriguing team.
It’s going to be interesting to see what the line is, as this is a quality matchup that’s probably worth watching as a basketball fan. The Las Vegas Aces are going to have the best player on the court in Wilson, but they also lost two key supporting pieces and it may take some time to adjust. The Chicago Sky return pretty much the same team from a year ago and having that chemistry in place is key while so many other teams are having to make changes.
I said the Chicago Sky are a team to watch this season, and I’m backing them in game one of their season.