There are few nicer sights for a struggling team than getting one of its best players back, and that is exactly what Toronto had on Tuesday night. Brittney Sykes was active against the Indiana Fever after missing about two months with a left plantar fascia injury, a return that at least gives the Toronto Tempo a shot of energy at a miserable time.
This was not just a routine comeback story. Sykes had been out since June 16, when she last played against the Indiana Fever and picked up the foot injury that threatened to wipe out the rest of her season. For a while, that fear seemed entirely believable. But after roughly two months on the sidelines, she was back in the mix, with a minutes restriction expected as Toronto tried to ease her into action.
Toronto badly needed something to change
The timing could hardly have been more obvious. Toronto entered the night with a 10-23 record, riding a 10-game losing streak and having dropped 14 of its past 15 contests. That is not the kind of form that gets solved by a single return, but it does help to have a guard who can actually bend a game in your favour again.
Sykes brought 20.1 points per game into the night, and that matters. Toronto has spent too long trying to survive without one of its most reliable creators, while the Fever kept trending upward and looked far more comfortable as the season moved along. In that sort of contrast, the return of a key scorer is more than a lineup note. It is a reminder that Toronto still has some legitimate talent to work with.
Of course, nobody should pretend this instantly fixes everything. A minutes restriction is a minutes restriction for a reason, and Toronto cannot expect one player to paper over a season that has already gone badly off the rails. But when a team has been losing this much, even a partial return matters. Brittney Sykes being available on Tuesday night was a genuine lift, not a cosmetic one.
That is the uncomfortable truth about seasons like this: sometimes the biggest positive is simply having a real player back on the floor. For Toronto, that was enough to count as news.
