Courtney Vandersloot made her 2026 season debut on June 26, returning to the Chicago Sky lineup after missing time because of an ACL tear suffered early in the 2025 season. For a player who has been a central figure for much of the franchise’s history, the return marked a meaningful step for both Vandersloot and a Sky team trying to balance multiple veteran point guards.
Vandersloot, now in her 16th year in the league and her 14th with the Chicago Sky, spent last season rehabilitating from the injury at home. The recovery process came with a familiar challenge for experienced players coming back from major knee injuries: the game looks different when you are watching it than when you are trying to play it.
“You know when you’re watching the game? I see it and it slows down. And then when I’m playing it, it’s completely different,” Vandersloot said. “That has been an adjustment for me. I can see what we need to be doing on the floor when I’m watching it. And then when I’m in the game, I’m understanding … just because you see it, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to do it on the floor.”
A shared point guard rotation
The Sky’s backcourt picture changed while Vandersloot was working her way back. Chicago signed Skylar Diggins in free agency and added Natasha Cloud at the start of training camp, giving the team another experienced layer at point guard. That has led to a setup built around shared responsibility rather than a single lead ball-handler.
The arrangement has already shown up in the box score and in the comments around the team. On Tuesday, Cloud scored a career-high 35 points in a win over the New York Liberty and spoke about learning from Vandersloot. Cloud said she won a title as a point guard for the Washington Mystics in 2019, and she described the opportunity to work alongside Vandersloot as a valuable one.
“It’s really a blessing to be here and be alongside Slooty as well, who’s just a phenomenal point guard, one of the best point guards to ever come through this league,” Cloud said. “Some nights it’s gonna be Slooty’s job to land the plane. Some nights it’s gonna be my job to land the plane. But we both have a lot of confidence in each other to finish it out.”
Vandersloot said the fit can work because the two guards do not have to play the exact same way. “Even though we’re the same position, we can play side to side,” she said. “But at the end of the day, one of us is sacrificing for the other, depending on whose night it is. And for her to be able to do that right now, I think that’s huge for both of us, and I think that it benefits us in the long run.”
That kind of flexibility gives Chicago options as Vandersloot ramps back up. It also reflects how the Sky are approaching the position now: not as a single-player role, but as a shared job that can shift from night to night depending on who has the better rhythm.
Vandersloot already showed what that can look like on Friday, when she helped the Chicago Sky beat the Golden State Valkyries. The sequence included a pass to Rachel Banham and a game-winning three-pointer by Sydney Taylor, a reminder that her return is about more than simply getting another name back on the floor. For Chicago, it adds another veteran decision-maker to a roster already built around guards who can steer the game in different ways.
