Chicago Sky fire Theresa Weatherspoon after 1 season

[cdubbz]

Head Coach Theresa Weatherspoon has been fired after 1 season with the Chicago Sky finishing the season with a 13-27 record - the previous season the Sky went 18-22.

- Kamila Cardoso was the 3rd pick and Angel Reese the 7th pick in the recent 2024 draft.
-Marina Mabrey was traded to Sun - a key addition to their playoff run.
-Chennedy Carter thrived under Weatherspoon in a comeback season for her.
- Sky will have a lottery pick in the upcoming 2025 draft.

Thoughts?

Read on Twitter

[cdubbz]

Angel Reese tweet on the situation

I’m heartbroken. I’m literally lost for words knowing what this woman meant to me in such a pivotal point in my life. She was the only person that believed in me. The one that trusted me. Many don’t even know what it’s like to be a black women in sports when nobody believes in you. You had a tough job. All the crazy circumstances that we went through this year & when your back was against the wall, you always believed. I came to Chicago because of YOU. You were an unsung hero in my life. We built a relationship in a short amount of time that will last forever. I’ll never question God why he brings people in my life and takes them away from me in the capacity that I need them but i’ve always believed everyone is in your life for a reason and a season. You were the best reason & season. You didn’t deserve this but I can’t thank you enough. I love you Tspoon.
@Finisher_11

Read on Twitter

[theforumblue]

Normally I'd say coach didn't get a fair chance. But she did screw up with letting the double double streak take priority over actual growth of the players.

[Doctor MJ]

Head Coach Theresa Weatherspoon has been fired after 1 season with the Chicago Sky finishing the season with a 13-27 record - the previous season the Sky went 18-22.

- Kamila Cardoso was the 3rd pick and Angel Reese the 7th pick in the recent 2024 draft.
-Marina Mabrey was traded to Sun - a key addition to their playoff run.
-Chennedy Carter thrived under Weatherspoon in a comeback season for her.
- Sky will have a lottery pick in the upcoming 2025 draft.

Thoughts?

Well first, surprised. I'd have expect the Sky to basically roll everything back with a wave of good will.

My guess is that this isn't really a basketball firing, so much as Weatherspoon and the front office butting heads.

[Green Chile]

This royally sucks.

She certainly wasn't perfect, but she did an amazing job with what she had.

This team was never supposed to come anywhere near a playoff push. It was led by a player that was out of the league last year and a rookie #7 draft pick.

I think there are some reasons to be critical of Spoon. The offense was stagnant, and the rotations didn't always make sense, but I think you could somewhat excuse those, at least give her another year. The offense might have been stagnant because they lacked shooting. Rotations on this team are challenging. While they lacked top flight veteran talent, it was still a pretty deep team and hard to find consistent playing time.

But still this was an odd roster, and she made the most of it.

Unless there was something going on behind the scenes that we couldn't see, she seemed like she got great effort and buy in from these players. This team seemed to love playing for her and with each other.

She seemed like a great leader for these young women, and I'm completely shocked that Chicago didn't give her another year to iron out the kinks (particularly with 2 1sts and some cap space to improve the roster).

[Green Chile]

And I see Chicago Sky Central already put up an emergency podcast. I'd have to assume they lost their **** over this.

Just a plug for that podcast. They've had it for about 3 years now

It's everything you would want for a team podcast. They love their Sky, but they are critical in the good ways.

[ellobo]

I thought the team overachieved when healthy and before trading Mabrey. From the outside there were definitely things to criticize, but when a first year coach overachieves with a badly constructed roster and seems to have good relationships with key players (other than Mabrey, I guess, and if their relationship was an issue, you wouldn't trade Mabrey and then fire Spoon), you'd think that coach was more likely a potential part of the solution than part of the problem, and deserved more time.

[Ice Man]

My guess is that this isn't really a basketball firing, so much as Weatherspoon and the front office butting heads.

Yep. That's what it feels like. As with the Bulls & Thibs. The Sky played very well for Spoon early in the season, then unsurprisingly fell after the Mabrey trade, plus then Carter missed some time. I don't see how another coach would have done better.

[Green Chile]

Paige, Rickea, Brink and Hamby are going to love Spoon as their coach next year.

Oh, and of course Chennedy too.

[King Bugs]

I just don't know what T-Spoon was supposed to accomplish with that team. The roster construction was a disaster, they had no scoring, they were the worst 3 point shooting team in the league, second half injuries killed them and they were starting 2 rookies.

Chicago definitely overachieved in the first half and were treading water on dominant rebounding and pure scrappiness, but when teams adjusted to the Sky and figured out that all you have to do was zone Chicago to neutralize the bigs and make their guards brick 3s all game, which was compounded with them trading away their best 3 point shooter, they were easy to defend and their season was over.

It has to be more to the story, because all this accomplished was making their All-Star rookie and current face of the franchise unhappy and it makes you wonder how the Sky is ran as an organization because star players do not tend to stick around in Chicago.

[theforumblue]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/09/27/chicago-sky-dysfunction-firing-teresa-weatherspoon/

Man they're a mess

[MrDollarBills]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/09/27/chicago-sky-dysfunction-firing-teresa-weatherspoon/

Man they're a mess

The fish rots from the head on downward

Firing a beloved coach after 1 year is a sure fire way to get players to start planning their exit. Something stinks in Chicago.

[MrDollarBills]

Normally I'd say coach didn't get a fair chance. But she did screw up with letting the double double streak take priority over actual growth of the players.

That is the one critique I have for Coach Spoon. She should have nipped that in the bud and reminded Angel that the streak means nothing if the team is losing

But fired after one year? Hmm.

[cdubbz]

Is there a big pool of coaching candidates floating around? i'm unfamiliar with the coaching carousel in the W. Are new coaches being promoted a lot when a coach gets fired?

Valkyries need a head coach and staff that they havent named yet. Sparks & Sky now need head coaches.

[ChiefILL53]

Spoon wasnt perfect, but the fact she had that team willing to run through a wall for her says a lot. Especially with the personalities she had to manage. Two picks in the top 10 (didnt they have to trade for both picks because of the mess that Wade left?), non shooters, and a player who was out of the league a year ago due to personality issues should have never been pegged to even be near the playoffs. She got a heavily flawed roster to overachieve and should have been given another season to get things in order with a better constructed and HEALTHY roster. It hasnt even been a full calendar year since she was hired, albeit its only about 3 weeks away. This looks worse on management than it does Spoon and it reeks of butting heads with management and possibly ownership. Just doesnt make any sense. The skys repuation around the W is already not great and this does NOT help.

[RSCD3_]

"Lots of questions re: the Sky's firing of Teresa Weatherspoon. Zooming out, our research (@NefWalker @wagesofwins
) looked at trends in WNBA head coach firings over 25 years. Controlling for on-court performance, Black women were nearly 3.5 times as likely to be fired as white men" - From twitter user @Laurenhinderman

This was linked in the tweet in question

https://t.co/FxEn6k9F3l

And if you compare and contrast this with how Curt Miller left LA it's night and day

[Green Chile]

Is there a big pool of coaching candidates floating around? i'm unfamiliar with the coaching carousel in the W. Are new coaches being promoted a lot when a coach gets fired?

Valkyries need a head coach and staff that they havent named yet. Sparks & Sky now need head coaches.

I have no idea. But Chicago better absolutely knock this hire out of the park.

I don't see any good reason to think they will though.

[cdubbz]

Read on Twitter

[Green Chile]

Read on Twitter

It sucks for Wright, but that one does make some sense.

Atlanta and Phoenix are the two jobs I would have thought would be in trouble with how the teams under-performed based on the talent they have.

Atlanta was hit by the injury bug, but even when healthy, it was hard to understand why they weren't better.

[Doctor MJ]

"Lots of questions re: the Sky's firing of Teresa Weatherspoon. Zooming out, our research (@NefWalker @wagesofwins
) looked at trends in WNBA head coach firings over 25 years. Controlling for on-court performance, Black women were nearly 3.5 times as likely to be fired as white men" - From twitter user @Laurenhinderman

This was linked in the tweet in question

https://t.co/FxEn6k9F3l

And if you compare and contrast this with how Curt Miller left LA it's night and day

So, I think there's a tidbit of information to keep in mind when we consider the phenomenon in question:

Only 3 of the 12 WNBA coaches this past year were men.

That doesn't rebut their study - but that's why they are talking about "firing discrimination" rather than hiring discrimination. These same WNBA bosses that appear to have a bias toward retaining their men more than their women coaches, are the same WNBA bosses that are clearly prioritizing hiring women coaches.

This is interesting, because it seems like unwitting self-sabotage due to evaluating coaching candidates through one lens and evaluating coaching performance through another, and thus any WNBA boss that seems to be falling prey to it could thus improve their team's competitive performance by ironing out their own process.

While I won't say that I'm confident that there's sample sufficient to really take this paper's findings as true signal, if I owned a WNBA team I'd want to make sure I wasn't letting my own implicit biases sabotage success.