The story going into the Chicago Sky’s first-round playoff game against the Dallas Wings on Thursday night was experience versus youth.

Sky players stepped onto the court at Wintrust Arena with over 100 playoff games between them. The Wings, the youngest team in the WNBA, had just four players who had ever been in the postseason.

The Sky, clearly, had been here before. But no one had experienced more games like these in a Sky uniform than Courtney Vandersloot, a staple of Chicago’s backcourt since the team drafted her with the third pick in 2011.

Vandersloot isn’t known for her scoring. The assists leader in the WNBA this year, she holds nearly every league record when it comes to passing. So it was somewhat surprising that of the 26 points the Sky scored in the fourth quarter, Vandersloot had 11 of them, helping seal the team’s 81-64 win over Dallas to advance to play the Minnesota Lynx in the second round Sunday.

“I was being aggressive towards the end of the game and my teammates were finding me,” Vandersloot said. “Things opened up for me late. They’re always harping on me to be aggressive and go for mine, so I showed them that I could do that.”

Vandersloot’s buckets in the fourth quarter were insurance for the Sky, but they were also crucial to putting the Wings away. Chicago led by as many as 19 points in the second quarter while holding Dallas to under 30 percent shooting from the field, but the Wings climbed out of that hole after halftime to get within five.

Arike Ogunbowale kept the Wings nipping at the Sky’s heels late, hitting a 3-pointer with 4:23 left in the fourth quarter to cut their lead to 68-63. The third-year guard led Dallas with 22 points on 5-for-10 shooting from deep in her playoff debut.

Vandersloot’s final stat line (17 points, eight rebounds, six assists) isn’t as flashy, but it was the awareness she showed to go at the rim when the Sky needed it most that impressed her head coach.

Gotta love a #Vanderquigz connection 💙 pic.twitter.com/P2r0hBDt4v

— Chicago Sky (@chicagosky) September 24, 2021

“I thought this was a good game for her because a lot of times your name is billed in the playoffs,” said James Wade. “Especially at the end where we were kind of struggling to score and she put the ball in her hands and did some crazy things … I thought it was good for her confidence to know that she’s that type of player.”

The Sky will need Vandersloot to contribute in multiple ways if they’re going to get through the Lynx and to the semifinals for the first time since 2016.

From a team perspective, Candace Parker liked what she saw Thursday night. After the Sky went 2-7 to start this season, losing seven straight games when Parker was sidelined with an injury, and turned things around to earn the sixth seed in the playoffs, the veteran appreciates the small wins, especially at this time of year.

“I loved how we handled adversity tonight. In the past, I don’t know if we would have continued to come together just through the ups and downs of the season,” Parker said. “So I think it’s giving me hope because that’s what the playoffs are, like it’s a game of runs. … Us learning that lesson of what we did right to get the run, but also what we did right to get out of it, I was really proud of that.”

Vandersloot’s uncharacteristic scoring touch helped the Sky hold the Wings’ run at bay. And the passing? That’s not going anywhere.

“She’s done things in this league that nobody has done,” Wade said. “Having these types of games in the playoffs only adds to the legend.”

the no look...
the and 1...

🤗 pic.twitter.com/ytUoirtikn

— Chicago Sky (@chicagosky) September 24, 2021

The 2025 WNBA season ended on a high note for Connecticut Sun star Tina Charles on Wednesday night, as the veteran center took home this year's Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award, an annual honor recognizing the WNBA player "who best exemplifies the characteristics of a leader in the community where they work or live."

Known for her career-long consistency on the court — where Charles leads the WNBA in all-time rebounds and sits second only to retired legend Diana Taurasi in career points — the 36-year-old standout is also deeply active with her nonprofit organization, the Hopey's Heart Foundation.

Founded in memory of Charles's late aunt Maureen "Hopey" Vaz in 2013, the family-run organization works to provide life-saving Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to schools and rec centers. Hopey's Heart celebrated their 500th AED distribution this year.

Due to these efforts — as well as her other team- and community-based initiative work — the WNBA chose to recognize Charles for "her extraordinary commitment to service, social justice, and creating lasting impact in the communities she serves."

Notably, this isn't Charles's first time earning the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award, with the WNBA star first receiving the honor for personally funding the building of a school for hundreds of children in Mali in 2012.

"Through my mother at a young age, I learned the importance of being a servant unto others, and receiving the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award is truly special for me — especially for Hopey's Heart Foundation to receive this honor through its work in raising awareness for sudden cardiac arrest," Charles said in her acceptance speech on Wednesday night.

Along with her award, the WNBA is donating $10,000 to Charles's foundation alongside $20,000 from Connecticut's Yale New Haven Health.

Congress members are speaking up for the WNBPA amid the union's ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations, with 85 lawmakers from the Democratic Women's Caucus and the House Democratic Caucus sending an open letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert on Tuesday demanding that the league "bargain in good faith to reach a fair CBA in a timely manner before the October 31 deadline."

Citing concerns "about the WNBA's delayed response, the differing accounts on the status of negotiations, and.. the needs of players," the letter vehemently voices support for the Players Association as temperatures rise in the tense CBA negotiations.

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The league and the WNBPA have struggled to find common ground, with both parties forced to consider filing an extension in the coming weeks.

"WNBA players receive no shared revenue under the current CBA," the Congress members explained in their letter. "This is drastic in comparison with other major professional sports leagues: National Basketball Association players receive 49 to 51%, National Football League players receive at least 48.8%, and National Hockey League players receive 50% of their respective shared revenues."

Players are also speaking out, with Seattle Storm star Gabby Williams recently telling CBS Sports, "The WNBA isn't enticing enough as far as money goes in order to keep us out of the other leagues."

Unrivaled Basketball is on the up and up, with the 3×3 league announcing expansion plans for its second season on Wednesday, growing from six to eight teams in 2026 following the venture's successful round of funding earlier this week.

Joining the offseason upstart in Miami next year will be Breeze Basketball Club and Hive Basketball Club.

The two new teams create 12 more roster spots, while another six will comprise the league's development pool — raising the total athletes on Unrivaled's payroll from 36 in its inaugural season to 54 in 2026.

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Unrivaled is also adding a fourth night of games each week to accommodate the incoming clubs, a move that will eliminate back-to-back matchups though each team will still play two games per week.

After nearly breaking even in their debut season, co-founders Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are growing Unrivaled ahead of schedule, moving expansion to 2026 from the league's original 2027 target.

"We outperformed every goal we set for the league in year one, and with the incredible talent we have returning paired with the influx of new stars, it was a no brainer to add two more clubs this season," Unrivaled president of basketball Luke Cooper said in the league's Wednesday announcement.

Unrivaled currently has more than 90% of its 2026 roster confirmed — including Dallas Wings rookie superstar Paige Bueckers — with plans to release the full second-season lineup by the end of September.

The NWSL salary cap has become a hot topic in recent weeks, with big-name — and big-money — transfers like Angel City forward Alyssa Thompson's overseas move to Chelsea and North Carolina Courage striker Jaedyn Shaw's reportedly imminent trade to Gotham raising concerns about the league's financial edge.

While Shaw's reported league-record $1.25 million trade proves that US teams are willing to pay a premium for top talent, the disparity between flashy transfer fees and salary limitations could be holding the NWSL back.

"I know that in the NWSL there are ambitious clubs that want to be able to compete with the likes of a Chelsea, with the likes of a Barcelona," retired USWNT star Tobin Heath said on last week's episode of The RE—CAP Show. "These teams are capped out, they can't compete. They're going to lose their best players."

The league's most recent collective bargaining agreement sets each NWSL club's current salary cap at $3.3 million, which will titrate up to $5.1 million by 2030 while also adding potential revenue sharing options.

In 2024, the average league salary was $117,000. However, with 22- to 26-player rosters, teams often low-ball some athletes in order to afford to pay out for superstars.

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Soft salary cap overseas lures soccer's top players

In comparison, the UK's WSL and second-tier WSL2 operate with soft caps, recently shifting to a framework that allows teams to spend up to 80% of their revenue plus a capped contribution from club owners on player salaries.

"We have no intent to kind of 'cap' any players' earnings," WSL Football COO Holly Murdoch told The Guardian earlier this month. "We're at the investment stage of women's football, so we don't want to deter investment. We don't want to put in rules that don't make us an attractive investment."

With NWSL top earners Sophia Wilson and Trinity Rodman becoming free agents in 2026, the US league might need to rethink its model to stay competitive in an increasingly aggressive global market.