Sydney Taylor turned a close game into a signature moment for the Chicago Sky, burying the game-winning three-point shot in a 73-70 victory over the Golden State Valkyries. For a player who went undrafted at the start of the season, it was the kind of finish that can change how a roster sees itself.
That is why Chicago Sky players are being searched now: Taylor has moved from an afterthought to a decisive piece for a team that needs answers, and this one arrived at the buzzer in plain view. Through 29 games in the 2026 season, she had averaged 14.5 points per game, shot 45.5% from the floor and 36% from deep, numbers that make the shot look less like a fluke than the latest proof of a real climb.
Taylor’s rise also helps explain why the Sky’s planning has felt so unsettled. Jeff Pagliocca first seemed to settle on one path after trading Angel Reese to the Atlanta Dream and building around Kamilla Cardoso, only to shift again three weeks later toward a team he believed could contend for a championship. In the middle of that churn, Tyler Marsh had already been using Taylor as a rotational piece at the start of her WNBA journey, a small role that now looks like a missed clue more than a full evaluation.
That is the friction in this story. The Sky have spent stretches trying to decide what they are before Taylor forced a simpler conversation: she is no longer just a depth option, and Chicago no longer has the luxury of treating her like one. A player who graduated from Louisville has become one of the clearest bright spots for a franchise the piece frames as having gone through a prolonged period of questionable decisions.
What comes next is the real test. The shot does not settle the bigger roster questions, but it does sharpen them. If Taylor keeps turning undrafted status into production, the Sky will have to build with that reality in mind rather than around whatever plan looked cleanest a few weeks earlier.
