Author: staff
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If the Chicago Sky learned one lesson last season, it was the importance of taking care of business early.After starting out 2-7 a year ago, the Sky are 5-3 and fourth in the Eastern Conference standings entering weekend games against the Atlanta Dream (6-3) on Friday and Washington Mystics (7-3) on Sunday. One loss can make the difference in having home-court advantage come playoff time.AdvertisementHere are three takeaways from the Sky’s first eight games and what they need to keep doing — and what they should avoid — heading into this important two-game stretch.In the first five games, the Sky didn’t look like the team that has thrived playing up-tempo the last three years. They ranked last in pace (93.31 possessions per 40 minutes), partly due to waiting on Kahleah Copper to return from overseas. Coach/general manager James Wade went with a lineup featuring three bigs in Emma Meesseman, Candace Parker and Azurá Stevens, which also stalled the Sky’s ability to get out on the break.AdvertisementOnce Copper returned from her season in Spain, that all changed.The Sky have turned up the jets in the last three games, ranking second in the WNBA in fast-break points per game and pace during that stretch. Adding Copper back to the starting lineup has helped the Sky score before the defense sets up. She averaged the second-most fast-break points per game last year on a Sky team that was first in transition points per possession.Sky guard Kahleah Copper dribbles along the baseline while Indiana Fever guard Victoria Vivians defends May 24, 2022, at Wintrust Arena. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)Her presence has already been felt.“We just got Kah back, which is huge,” point guard Courtney Vandersloot said last week. “We are still trying to get our flow and rhythm, but mostly we need to rebound to get out in transition.”The Sky will be tested in getting out on the break against the Dream and Mystics. Both teams rank in the top five in fast-break points allowed per game. However, it’s encouraging that the Sky have returned to what they do best: scoring in transition.[ [Don’t miss] It took 10 years, but the Chicago Sky’s Rebekah Gardner is relishing her 1st WNBA chance as a 31-year-old rookie ]The Sky have had a reputation the last three years for making things interesting at the end of games. From losing double-digit leads to crawling back into games that seemed out of reach, the Sky’s proclivity for not taking care of business early in games has reared its head in 2022. Sky guard Courtney Vandersloot calls out to teammates May 6, 2022, at Wintrust Arena. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)Vandersloot, however, has come to the rescue multiple times.Six of the Sky’s eight games have been clutch games, defined by a team trailing or leading by five points or fewer in the last five minutes of regulation. Vandersloot has 49 fourth-quarter points this season and is first in the league with 26 clutch points. She has been the steady force the offense has needed when it becomes stagnant.AdvertisementWade has preached urgency, but it hasn’t arrived yet.“These games that we play in that we’re winning in the fourth quarter will get you old quick,” Wade said. “I’m trying to stay young, but it feels like my birthday is tomorrow.”The Mystics let the Sky bully them in the second half on May 22 in Washington, but they might be getting defensive anchor Alysha Clark back after she missed the first meeting. The Sky can’t keep relying on Vandersloot’s last-minute efforts if they are going to beat one of the best teams in the league.[ [Don’t miss] Chicago sports teams have won at least 14 championships since 1985. Here’s a look at all their rings. ]When Meesseman signed with the Sky in the offseason, all of the talk was about the team’s offensive upside. The 2019 WNBA Finals MVP has played with Vandersloot and Allie Quigley the last four years in Russia with UMMC Ekaterinburg, where Wade was an assistant before the Sky hired him.However, the offense still hasn’t quite clicked the last three games. The Sky have shot a league-worst 24.6% from beyond the 3-point arc and have the ninth-best offensive rating (97.2) in that span.Meesseman told the Tribune two weeks ago it has been “a process” learning to play in this style of offense with Vandersloot and Quigley. Vandersloot echoed a similar sentiment after the Sky’s win over the Phoenix Mercury on Tuesday. AdvertisementSky forward Emma Meesseman shoots against the Los Angeles Sparks on May 6, 2022, at Wintrust Arena. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AP)“It’s a different style of basketball,” Vandersloot said. “She’s European and we play in Europe together, so it’s just different. I think we underestimated that going into the season. The coverages and athleticism are different. They’re switching a lot with us and overseas they don’t switch, so we have to adjust.“It’s taken us a little bit of time, but I’m willing to bet on us that we’ll figure it out because she is one of the best players in the world.”The Sky have been unselfish almost to a fault. Wade pointed to the team passing up open shots, leading to contested attempts at the end of the shot clock. Only eight games into the season, the Sky have time to get back on track.“We are talented enough to figure it out,” Wade said.
In the pecking order of professional sports, is being a scout considered an undesirable gig? I have no idea. General managers probably take all the credit when the team lands a star in the making, and lay all the blame on scouts when a sure thing flames out. These kinds of grievances are true of any number of professions that don’t have anything near the sex appeal of being able to say you work for an NBA team, but the Netflix movie “Hustle,” starring Adam Sandler and his beard, takes it as a given that the job blows.Look, maybe it does. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to move up the ladder, as Sandler’s Stanley Sugerman so clearly does. A longtime and exhausted scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, he gets bumped to assistant coach for half a second before getting bumped back down when the team’s owner dies (a blink-or-you’ll-miss-him Robert Duvall) and his insufferable son (Ben Foster) takes over and sends Stanley out on the road to find that clichéd “missing piece” the team so desperately needs.AdvertisementIf a long sigh were a person, he would be Stanley Sugerman. He’s burned out and his dreams have been dashed. Or as tells his wife (Queen Latifah): “Guys in their 50s don’t have dreams, they have nightmares. And eczema.” So he swallows his pride and drags his suitcase through Europe, looking for potential international draft picks. When he arrives in Spain, he spies a 6′9″ ringer in Timberlands (Utah Jazz power forward Juancho Hernangómez) crushing it in a street game and walking away with a fistful of cash.That’s one kind of hustle the title is referring to.AdvertisementFrom left: Juancho Hernangómez as Bo Cruz and Adam Sandler as Stanley Sugerman in “Hustle.” (Scott Yamano/Netflix)There’s another — of a man past his prime who perks up when he spots a diamond in the rough. Stanley is convinced this humble construction worker named Bo Cruz is his next great find. His boss says no way, the guy’s a nobody, so Stanley brings the kid back to the States anyway, against the team’s objections — and on his own dime. “Philadelphia baby, you’re gonna love it,” Stanley says, filling the awkward silence as they drive to Bo’s hotel. “Best sports fans in the world. Actually, the worst, but that’s what makes them the best.”But wait, there’s another kind of hustle at play — of the drive needed to compete at the NBA level. Bo is quiet and inexperienced and sometimes rattled by trash talk. There’s an assault charge from his past that complicates matters. But he has Stanley in his corner. Poor beaten-down Stanley, who believes in this kid. And friends, you have yourselves a sports drama.Sandler’s own interest in basketball is well known and he’s a producer here alongside LeBron James and James’ longtime business partner Maverick Carter. The NBA bona fides extend to the end credits, which are an array of “as himself” appearances (these are barely even cameos so don’t get your hopes up) and yet the movie, directed by Philly native Jeremiah Zagar, feels like the opposite of an insider’s take on the sport.Screenwriters Taylor Materne and Will Fetters hit the expected signposts. Do You Love The Game? Triumph Over Adversity. Will We Make It To The Big Tryout In Time? A training montage, of course there’s a training montage. I don’t have a problem with tropes because they’re proven elements of a genre that exist for a reason: They are reliably satisfying and they work. And yet the stakes in “Hustle” feel nonexistent. The worst that can happen? Bo goes back to working construction in Spain and Stanley takes that generous sports agent job offered to him early in the film.From left: Juancho Hernangómez is the diamond in the rough and Adam Sandler is the guy committed to getting him signed to a team. (Cassy Athena/Netflix)But Stanley is doing his best to ensure that doesn’t happen. Here’s how he attempts to drum up interest in Bo: “The kid is like if Scottie Pippen and a wolf had a baby.” I don’t know jack about basketball but I know who Pippen is and the line sort of just sort of sits there, willing itself to be more than it is, but you’ll forgive me if even I’m baffled to learn that Stanley’s own daughter is more clueless than I. Would a basketball obsessive who lives in Philly, employed by the Sixers no less, raise a child who would refer to Dr. J, aka Julius Erving, as “your doctor friend” with a straight face? C’mon now, that’s just clunky, whether it’s meant to be funny or a version of “kids these days!”Whatever. Visually there’s not much to grab your eye, but the bigger issues lie with the writing. There aren’t really any characters, it’s kind of remarkable. It’s a film that doesn’t even rely on archetypes, it simply populates the screen with people, some of whom occasionally say things. Why waste a talent like Queen Latifah on a role that’s little more than half a dozen lines? And whatever charisma Hernangómez may have in real life as a player on the court doesn’t carry over onscreen. As an actor, he struggles to fill in the script’s gaps — not that he should be asked to, anyway. He’s likable company, which goes a long way, but he’s not the sort of talent who can compensate for a halfhearted script. That’s more Sandler’s area, and his performance is refreshingly free of anything extraneous, playing a schleppy guy who allowed himself to get a little too bored with things, before putting it all on the line for a late-in-life attempt at something meaningful.I appreciate that “Hustle” even exists in a Hollywood landscape that doesn’t presently know what to do with movies that aren’t about life-or-death or saving the world. It’s not quite an airball; you won’t find yourself returning to it again and again, either. But there’s a part of me that’s just happy to see non-blockbuster movies about human-scaled dilemmas still getting made.“Hustle” — 2 stars (out of 4)AdvertisementWhere to watch: In theaters June 3; on Netflix June 8Queen Latifah and Adam Sandler play husband and wife in “Hustle.” (Scott Yamano/Netflix)Nina Metz is a Tribune criticnmetz@chicagotribune.comWhat to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life … now. Sign up for our Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here.
When The Onion relocated its editorial operations from New York to Chicago 10 years ago, nearly a third of the East Coast scribes refused to move,…
When The Onion relocated its editorial operations from New York to Chicago 10 years ago, nearly a third of the East Coast scribes refused to move,…
Nubia Ptah knew the person lying on the colorful rug wasn’t really shot. She knew the T-shirt tourniquet being tied wasn’t really necessary, and that the various invisible wounds weren’t real.But for Ptah, just watching a person pretend to be riddled with bullets at a first-responder training last week at the Chicago Torture Justice Center was unnerving.Advertisement“I literally thought I was going to see blood,” she said after she saw the fake shooting victims get up from the floor. “I think it’s because we know somebody who knows somebody who was shot.”Ptah is not a first responder. Instead, she and roughly a dozen others were learning how to respond and give aid to a person who suffers a gunshot wound in real-time situations. They learned how everyday items, such as an empty potato chip or zip-lock bags, can be used in the absence of first-aid kit supplies in an emergency.AdvertisementAs the gun control debate rages on in the wake of recent mass shootings, including this week’s rampage at a Tulsa medical office and last month’s shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, local community organizers are working in the reality of living with everyday gun violence.With the official start of summer only weeks away, grassroots organizations are gearing up to host activities in 24 city neighborhoods that experience high levels of gun violence. Martine Caverl, a registered nurse, is continuing to give a series of first-responder trainings on Chicago’s South and West sides. She dreads the summer given the violence that it usually brings.“At this time, Black people in Chicago are feeling a lot of hopelessness,” said Caverl, executive director and co-founder of Ujimaa Medics, which organized the May 25 training. “We want to believe in each other … We want to build that sense of collective work and responsibility in our communities.”Caverl and her team of trained volunteers have taken their mission to protect Black lives through emergency and community care first response skills thanks to an $8,400 grant provided by Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities.The nonprofit is a coalition of more than 50 local foundations and funders and has provided $1.5 million this year to grassroots organizations like Caverl’s.During the two-hour workshop last week, participants learned skills like how to handle a 911 call, how to apply a tourniquet with clothing or use an occlusive dressing to keep blood in a shooting victim’s body with everyday items like a discarded plastic grocery bag or clean sanitary pad.The participants learn about scene safety and how to cope with bystanders, how to ask for consent to give aid, and other universal precautions.In a city often rocked by daily shootings, the workshops are not only potentially lifesaving, but also community building, Caverl said. The trainings have been taught in living rooms, at backyard barbecues, in barbershops and schools.Advertisement“What does it mean when Black people are relying on each other for that help, that assistance, that community, for that helping hand?” she said.Nubia Ptah lies on the ground while Jasmine, 19, ties a scarf around her leg as they practice a gunshot wound treatment scenario during an Ujimaa Medics workshop at the Chicago Torture Justice Center. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)In 2020, guns became the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States, according to a Johns Hopkins review of the country’s gun deaths last year. More than 4,300 died of firearm-related injuries that year, a 29% increase from 2019, according to a recent research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which analyzed decades of mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.During the workshop, Caverl and her team would ask the volunteers if they were OK after each shooting scenario. The volunteers would respond affirmatively, but they also had the opportunity to talk with others on-site willing to listen or take a moment to regroup outside of the space.After the training concluded, Ptah told Caverl the event was “awesome.” She said the most important thing for her was them asking about individual volunteers’ wellness and frame of mind after volunteering for each scenario.“It kept me present when they asked if I was OK. It secured my sanity,” she said.Caverl’s response: “That’s what we need.”AdvertisementMore than 200 local grassroots organizations received PSPC grants, including Wild Yams and The cre.æ.tive Room, which each received $5,000. The groups focus on Black mothers and creativity through artist residencies.Wisdom Baty, founder of Wild Yams, and Clemenstien Love, founder of The cre.æ.tive Room, said the money will be used to conduct nine community events, including gardening classes and mural activations in the Greater Grand Crossing and South Shore areas. The collaborative art projects will emphasize the importance of Black joy, beauty and safe spaces.Clemenstien Love, The cre.æ.tive Room founder and art/design director, and Wisdom Baty, creative director and founder of Wild Yams, received $5,000 from the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities for art projects that emphasize the importance of Black joy, safe spaces and supporting Black women in their creativity. (Clemenstien Love, Wisdom Baty)“What we need is joy,” Baty said. “I’m a strong advocate for less policing, more joy, more employment. We will be activating communities and neighbors … We also need the visual aid to think positively of ourselves. That’s the catalyst work that we see ourselves thinking through this summer.”Kokugonza Kaijage practices putting a tourniquet on a leg while attending an Ujimaa Medics gunshot wound first response workshop. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)“We hope to create in the space of the training some kind of transformation in healing and sense of empowerment — a sense that there’s something that we can do to improve the life within our communities,” Caverl said.That’s why Ujimaa Medics isn’t limited to gunshot wound training. It also conducts workshops on seizures and asthma community care and they’re continuously developing curriculum to address community needs, Caverl said.“The idea is how do we achieve self-determination as it relates to our health? How do we transform our communities in such a way that we feel responsible for one another? There’s a method in which we can exercise that,” she said.AdvertisementSymphony Fletcher, a second-year University of Chicago medical student, reached out to volunteer with Ujimaa Medics because she wanted to know what else she can do outside of the emergency department to help those in her community. She’s been volunteering for the past year and calls it “life sustaining.”“I know at least if a gentleman had gotten shot and I wasn’t there, and a trained professional wasn’t there, then their community has them,” she said. “At the end of the day, if we’re being real, it’s our communities that is going to have our backs more than any system or institution.”Check Ujimaa Medics social media for upcoming summer workshops. Applications for the Wild Yams at The cre.æ.tive Room Black Mothers Artist Summer Residency Program closes June 10.drockett@chicagotribune.com