The No. 3 draft choose within the 2025 WNBA draft will now not play for the Chicago Sky subsequent season. That’s as a result of the Sky have traded it for Washington Mystics star Ariel Atkins, ESPN’s Alexa Phillipou reported on Sunday. As a part of the commerce, the Mystics will even obtain a 2027 first-round choose swap and Chicago’s second-round choose in 2027.
For the Mystics, the choice to commerce away Atkins alerts a need to rebuild round a promising younger core headlined by Aaliyah Edwards. Atkins, who was the Mystics’ main scorer final season, leaves after spending the primary 7 years of her profession with the group. Washington will pair the 2025 No. 3 choose with final yr’s No. 6 choose. Edwards had a stable rookie season, however has seemingly elevated her recreation to a different stage by taking part in in Unmatched, the brand new skilled ladies’s 3-on-3 basketball league happening in Miami by March.
However for the Sky, the commerce appears to point a stage of urgency to win sooner relatively than later.
What Ariel Atkins brings to Chicago
Chicago now enters subsequent season with a revamped roster that options offseason acquisitions Courtney Vandersloot, Kia Nurse, Rebecca Allen, and Atkins, in addition to returning frontcourt standouts Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese.
Vandersloot is a veteran level guard who will nearly definitively elevate the play of Reese and Cardoso, whereas Allen is an skilled three-point shooter and stable defender who will assist area the ground in Chicago. Nurse, in the meantime, joins the group through free company after a yr with the Los Angeles Sparks, and holds profession averages of 9.3 factors and a couple of.5 rebounds.
Photograph by Kenny Giarla/NBAE through Getty Pictures
Atkins is a two-time All-Star, a former U.S. Olympian, and an elite two-way participant. Final yr, she averaged 14.9 factors per recreation, capturing 42.7% from the sphere and 35.7% from three.
She’s averaged double-figure factors in every of her 7 WNBA seasons. She’s additionally the primary participant in WNBA historical past who was named to an All-Defensive Crew in every of her first 5 seasons. Earlier this week, Unmatched introduced Atkins as their newest reduction contract participant. Earlier than that, Atkins had been taking part in professionally for the Turkish membership Fenerbahce this winter.
At 28 years outdated, Atkins is amid her athletic prime and may assist elevate the Sky’s roster instantly, on each ends. The choice to surrender the No. 3 choose for her signifies Chicago needs to extend the probabilities of a profitable season in 2025 and appears to comply with a sample of buying veteran gamers that started when Vandersloot agreed to signal with the workforce final month.
Atkins will definitely enhance subsequent yr’s roster and supply a flexible scoring possibility who can even defend. However, in buying her, the Sky gave up a promising choose in what was set as much as be a stacked draft class — a call that might show pricey in the long run.