Courtney Vandersloot begins second Sky chapter as 2025 training camp begins

There’s one new member of the Sky who likely had no trouble Sunday figuring out the route to Deerfield’s Sachs Recreation Center for the team’s first practice of the 2025 season.

“This feels very familiar,” guard Courtney Vandersloot said. “Very good to be back, very happy.”

After spending two seasons with the Liberty, Vandersloot returned to the Sky as a free agent in February. She’s now with a Sky team that’s significantly different from the one she last played with in 2022. The roster is built around sophomores Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso, and the team is welcoming another new coach in Tyler Marsh after firing Teresa Weatherspoon over the offseason.

But even with the turnover, it’s not stunning to see Vandersloot back in the Sky’s colors.

Vandersloot helped lead the Sky to the 2021 WNBA title, an accomplishment honored above the team’s practice floor with a championship banner. Even if Vandersloot had stayed longer in New York or moved elsewhere, she would have remained a significant piece of the Sky’s story, as the banner and team’s record books indicate.

The Sky are also a big part of her story, and she never dismissed coming back for another chapter. Vandersloot herself didn’t look too shocked to see herself back in the Sky’s colors Sunday, the same colors that helped her become one of the most prolific passers in WNBA history and earn a pair of all-league nods.

“I always leave the door open. You just never know,” Vandersloot said. “Obviously, Chicago is a very special place to me. I was drafted here. I would never close the door on them. To be back in it, I’m not that surprised and it feels right.”

It’s also too early for Vandersloot to say how much different things are around the Sky, other than the roster. There’s some newness but familiarity mixed in, and Vandersloot actually thought of a different time frame to make comparisons.

“It’s new for everyone. It’s very familiar,” Vandersloot said. “It’s still the Chicago Sky. We’ve been on the right path. A lot has changed since my first day here my rookie year. A lot, other than this building. We’re on the right path. We’re making the right changes. Have the right people in place. It’s a really special place to be.”

Knowing how Vandersloot and the Sky feel about each other, it would be easy to say the Sky brought her back just for sentimentality and to connect the current group to the team that won the 2021 championship. The Sky have other plans for Vandersloot outside of helping fans remember different eras of the team.

Beyond just distributing the basketball and giving her teammates the best chance to score. Vandersloot figures to provide valuable wisdom to the Sky. Drafted third overall in 2011, Vandersloot’s experienced anything the Sky will encounter this season. She’s seen how teams succeed and how they fail and knows the best ways to get the right results.

Early on, Vandersloot’s leadership and presence stand out to Marsh.

“She doesn’t have the biggest voice but when she talks, people listen,” Marsh said. “That itself is powerful because you know that when she speaks up, there’s information that she’s going to share and there’s a lot of experience there. There’s championship experience there. It’s invaluable what she brings to our team.”

Marsh will lean on Vandersloot as a leader and “an extension” of the Sky’s coaching staff on the floor.

“There’s times that she makes life a lot easier for everyone on the court, she makes life easier for our staff from the sidelines,” Marsh said.