Despite a revamped Chicago Sky roster, the team’s newcomers share a rich history with each other — on and off the court

When the Chicago Sky return to the court in May, the roster will feature only a handful of familiar faces. Yet despite signing seven new players for the 2023 season, the team is anything but foreign to one another.

With only 144 players, the WNBA always has felt like a group of overlapping connections — offseason training partners, hometown friends, former teammates from college and overseas — and the Sky roster is a reflection of that tight-knit tapestry.

When Astou Ndour-Fall signed with the Sky, she earned an immediate teasing from new guard and former Dallas Wings teammate Marina Mabrey: “You’re stuck with me a little longer.”

The Sky brought in several groups of former teammates during their reconstruction, including Ndour-Fall, Mabrey and center Izzy Harrison.

Harrison and Mabrey spent the last three years together in Dallas, forging a bond as a guard-center duo. Their partnership will be key for the Sky as both players plan to step into starting roles.

“Our pick-and-roll game is immaculate,” Harrison said. “The attention that Marina brings off of a ball-screen — it answers my prayers at the post.”

Ndour-Fall also spent the 2020 season with Harrison and Mabrey with the Wings, but her main familiarity will be with the Sky.

Before sitting out the 2022 WNBA season, Ndour-Fall played three seasons for the Sky in 2018, 2019 and 2021. She has known coach/GM James Wade since her entry to the league in 2014, when he was the only person on the San Antonio Stars coaching staff who could interpret French to English for her.

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After winning a championship with the Sky in 2021, Ndour-Fall embraced her third homecoming to the team.

“Everybody knows that the Chicago Sky is my hometown,” Ndour said. “I liked playing there since day one. I know James. I feel so comfortable to play there and just be myself.”

Elizabeth Williams and Courtney Williams (not related) also are reuniting after spending two seasons together with the Atlanta Dream from 2020-21. Both players emphasized their role as high-energy contributors

As she watched the roster piece together, Elizabeth texted Courtney: “I guess we’re gonna get all the offensive rebounds this year.”

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For Harrison and Courtney Williams, this year’s debut on a WNBA court together has been years in the making. The Phoenix Mercury drafted the pair in 2016, but they didn’t last long as teammates. Williams was traded to the Connecticut Sun after six games while Harrison sat out the season after tearing her right ACL during her senior season at Tennessee. Still, the pair remained close off the court as their paths ran parallel.

“Ever since then, I promise you, we’ve been so locked in,” Harrison said. “We know what each other brings and what we can do for each other on the court. I know what she likes, I know how she wants to get her score and vice versa, she’s the same with me.”

This will be the first full WNBA season that Harrison and Williams will spend on the same roster, but the pair played in Italy together for Dike Napoli in 2018. They also will spend the next five weeks in Dallas — potentially as teammates or opponents — for the Athletes Unlimited season.

Neither could contain her excitement to finally show out on the WNBA stage together.

“We’ve been hype,” Courtney said. “Me and Izzy (have) been playing together for so long, so it just feels like more like reuniting, not like what everybody else sees. We’ve been here before. We’re just excited to get out there again.”

Although the additions haveconnections, they will be new to one key player — two-time All-Star Kahleah Copper. Mabrey was the first addition to play alongside Copper during U.S. national team practice in February and she lauded an immediate connection between the guards.

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But none of the new players was worried about fit. They came to Chicago to play with Copper, who stands out as one of the up-and-coming stars with the highest ceilings in the league. And after years of attempting — and, she admitted — often failing to shut Copper down, Harrison feels she understands how to thrive alongside her new teammate.

“If you just give her a good screen — sometimes she don’t even need the screen — but if you’re there fast enough to give her a screen, she gets to the rim every single time,” Harrison said. “And as a post player, that’s my best thing I have to have. I have a guard that’s able to attack. So now they’re going to respect her more and now I’m wide open.”

Building chemistry will be a key for the preseason, which begins May 1. Regardless of experience with one another, every new Sky player emphasized the same connective tissue binding this team — a desire to erase any doubt built up during the offseason.

“The pieces that have been put together are people that constantly play with chips on their shoulder,” Elizabeth Williams said. “People that are competitors. For championship teams, you need a little bit of that. You need to have something that you feel like you have to prove.”