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Every Chicago Sky practice ends the same way for Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley.
Once the team huddle breaks at center court, the couple claim a hoop for a simple 3-pointer exercise: Make a series of consecutive shots from each of the five main spots around the arc, then repeat. They start at six uninterrupted makes from each spot, working their way down to one apiece.
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It’s one of many routines Vandersloot and Quigley established almost immediately after becoming teammates in 2013. They began showing up early for training sessions and staying late to shoot. Over time, they built a rhythm: Hit the gym an hour before practice to focus on individual skills, work in an extra lift on game day mornings and stay late to practice 3-pointers.
For a decade, those extra hours in the gym encapsulated everything that makes the couple work on and off the court — the rarity of finding two people matched both in their love of the game and their relentless drive to perfect it.
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It takes patience to finish the 3-point drill, but that’s OK. Vandersloot and Quigley take their time, ball snapping through the net as they slip into a shooting rhythm.
Six in a row, five in a row, four, three, two, one. Swish.
Neither Vandersloot nor Quigley feels satisfied until they leave the gym on a perfect streak.
It’s impossible to imagine the Sky franchise without Vandersloot and Quigley.
The Sky drafted Vandersloot in 2011 for their sixth WNBA season. Quigley arrived two years later. All that followed — 3-point-contest wins, league assist records, a wedding, a WNBA title — felt inevitable.
“Their chemistry on the court is just as magnificent as it is off the court,” coach James Wade said. “When you think of Chicago Sky basketball, they’re the two names that quickly come to mind.”
Someday soon, the Sky will need to redefine themselves without Vandersloot,33, and Quigley, 36. Both are out of contract at the end of the season after signing one-year deals following tense offseason negotiations. Quigley chose not to sign with a European team in the winter for the first time in 15 years, signaling the likelihood of her impending retirement.
But that day hasn’t arrived. After years of losing records and crushing playoff losses, Vandersloot and Quigley are right where they want to be — leading their team in another semifinal playoff series against the Connecticut Sun, just two wins from another trip to the WNBA Finals and a chance to become the first team to repeat in 20 years.
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With the best-of-five series tied 1-1 — Game 3 is Sunday in Uncasville, Conn. — this isn’t the end just yet. But the final days of this era deserve to be savored and cherished. And for Quigley and Vandersloot, the rarity of their situation — with another title only five wins away — lends greater weight to every game left.
“I have to remind myself on both the bad days and the good days that these are days that we’re going to look back on and miss,” Vandersloot told the Tribune. “Even after tough losses or games that don’t go your way, there’s still so much joy in the process. Those are the things that can make it really, really special in the end.
“We’re just trying to take one day at a time and enjoy each other because that’s ultimately why we’re here and why we’re fighting together.”
The hardest part, Vandersloot said, was the patience it required.
The Sky didn’t become a winning team overnight — in fact, they were a losing team for Vandersloot’s first two seasons. The team was buoyed for a few years by additions such as Elena Delle Donne but couldn’t keep its drafted stars happy in Chicago.
Vandersloot and Quigley spent years waiting for a starting lineup to share a simple mentality: “I want to play there. I want to be here.”
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It took until 2017 for the pair to find what they needed in Kahleah Copper.
Copper was reticent at first — she was drafted and traded after her rookie season with the Washington Mystics in a whiplash introduction to the league. But she bought in to the Sky’s identity. Most important, Quigley and Vandersloot bought in to her, building a foundation with a young talent who quickly transformed into a league-defining player in a matter of years.
With Copper on board, Quigley and Vandersloot felt the tide begin to turn in the Sky locker room.
“The main thing was that people wanted to play the style that we play,” Quigley told the Tribune. “It wasn’t ‘Oh, I want to come to Chicago for their gym or to live in the city.’ They want to play our style of basketball, and that superseded everything. That’s something we definitely take pride in.”
That tide turned to a flood in 2021 with the signing of Candace Parker.
Yes, Parker is a Chicago-area native who always dreamed of playing for hometown team. But Parker was blunt — she was driven to Chicago by her belief in the team’s ability to win with Vandersloot at the helm.
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“Sloot is Chicago,” Parker said after Game 2. “This is her franchise. I came here to play with her.”
Midway through the first quarter of Game 2 of the first-round series against the New York Liberty, Vandersloot slashed down the baseline with the ball her hands, hesitating for a half-second before launching for a layup and catching Mariné Johannes on her back for a foul.
The move was textbook, one of the nuances that sets Vandersloot apart as one of the best point guards in WNBA history. But what came next was a bit more rare — Vandersloot stepping toward the Liberty bench to flex both arms, holding the pose for a half-second while the Sky crowd roared back.
“I love it when she flexes — even though her muscles aren’t as big as mine,” Parker joked.
The last year has given Vandersloot more chances to flex on and off the court.
Winning a title took a weight off her shoulders. Vandersloot doesn’t just feel confident in herself — she knows this team can win, even with their backs against the wall.
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In their first two seasons as teammates, forward Azurá Stevens described Vandersloot as a “quiet leader” who set a standard through her actions rather than words. But after winning the title, Stevens saw the captain find a different strength in her voice.
Vandersloot always carries a burden. She blames herself for every poor result, regardless of her statline. After scoring only three points in the series-opening loss to the Sun, Vandersloot’s frustration brought a keen edge to Game 2 to level the series.
But Vandersloot also craves this pressure — to her, the burden of expectation is a necessity to keep driving the Sky forward.
“The work takes time and it’s not always perfect,” Vandersloot said. “We talk about this thing that we built, but it’s not what other people see from the outside. They don’t see everything that it takes to keep it this way. It’s not like once you’re there, once it gets built, now we can just admire it. No, it takes work. It takes sacrifice.”
Vandersloot and Quigley ultimately defined Sky basketball by making the unbelievable ordinary.
Quigley refusing to hesitate before firing a shot from a full yard behind the 3-point arc with a hand flung in her face. Vandersloot threading a ball between two bewildered defenders, her chin turned in the opposite direction of the teammate she blindly fed for a wide-open layup.
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It was unbelievable for Quigley to win the All-Star Weekend 3-point contest for a record fourth time this season. And for Vandersloot in 2020 to break Ticha Penicheiro’s single-game assist record. And for the 2021 Sky to flip a 16-16 regular season into a WNBA title in a matter of weeks.
Now, the Sky never feel at a loss for belief. They followed their title run with a franchise-record 26-win regular season. Only two players on the roster haven’t won a WNBA trophy. This confidence gives the Sky a newfound pedigree.
After the last decade with the Sky, Vandersloot and Quigley know to cherish these moments.
“There’s not many times when you can be at the end of the season and truly believe, ‘We have a chance at the championship,’ ” Quigley said. “We have a chance this year and we know how rare that is. It can happen once or twice in your career. We’ve all talked about it, we all know it and we all want to make the most of it. Because moments like this don’t happen again.”
