WNBA Finals MVP Kahleah Copper is finalizing a multi-year deal to return to the Chicago Sky, sources tell Just Women’s Sports.

The Sky put the core designation on Copper earlier this month, expressing their long-term commitment to the All-Star.

Copper, who has been with the Sky since 2017, helped the franchise win its first-ever WNBA championship after leading Chicago in scoring during the regular season (14.4 points per game) and playoffs (17.7). The guard’s return is the first major domino to fall for a veteran Sky team looking to run it back in 2022.

The Philadelphia native entered the WNBA as the No. 7 overall pick of the Washington Mystics in the 2016 draft. Washington traded Copper to the Sky the following season as part of the deal for Elena Delle Donne. In her first three seasons in Chicago, Copper came off the bench and averaged 6.8 points in 15 minutes per game. She broke out during the 2020 WNBA bubble season, starting every contest and leading the team with 14.9 points per game.

Copper was named the 2021 WNBA Finals MVP after a dominant playoff performance. The Sky overcame two single-elimination games and the No. 1 seed Connecticut Sun in the semifinals before defeating the Phoenix Mercury in four games in the Finals. Copper scored in double digits in each of Chicago’s 10 playoff games.

With Copper, 27, locked in, the Sky can turn their attention to the rest of their unrestricted free agents, notably Allie Quigley and Courtney Vandersloot. Stefanie Dolson, a center on the Sky’s championship team, is on her way out after agreeing to a multi-year deal with the New York Liberty, The Athletic reported on Sunday. Free agents can officially begin signing contracts with teams on Tuesday.

Rachel Galligan is a basketball analyst at Just Women’s Sports. A former professional basketball player and collegiate coach, she also contributes to Winsidr. Follow Rachel on Twitter @RachGall.

The Chicago Sky have put the core designation on Kahleah Copper, giving her the option to accept a one-year, $228,094 supermax deal to return to the team.

The core designation means the team retains a player’s rights, but the sides can begin negotiating different terms on Jan. 15. The offer could also result in a sign-and-trade.

“We want to see Kahleah stay in a Chicago Sky uniform for a long time,” Sky head coach and GM James Wade tells Just Women’s Sports. “She is a very important part of our culture off the court and on the court. We appreciate the growth that she has had and we appreciate the fact that she is so motivated to continue to grow and evolve as a star player. So this is a special day for us, and hopefully it’s a special day for Kahleah.”

Copper ended the 2021 season as one of the WNBA’s biggest breakout stars. Named to her first WNBA All-Star Game, she also won Finals MVP after guiding the Sky to their first championship in franchise history. The 6-foot-1 wing led the Sky with 14.4 points per game during the regular season and increased her output to 17.7 points per game in the playoffs.

After elevating her play the last two seasons, Copper entered the offseason as one of the most sought-after free agents. But the 27-year-old has expressed her interest in returning to Chicago.

Originally drafted No. 7 overall by the Washington Mystics in the 2016 WNBA Draft, Copper was traded to Chicago in 2017 as part of the deal for Elena Delle Donne. Copper has cemented herself as an integral piece of the Sky, who will also look to retain unrestricted free agents Allie Quigley and Courtney Vandersloot when negotiations begin on Saturday. Candace Parker and Azurá Stevens are under contract for the 2022 season.

Rachel Galligan is a basketball analyst at Just Women’s Sports. A former professional basketball player and collegiate coach, she also contributes to Winsidr. Follow Rachel on Twitter @RachGall.

Kahleah Copper believes in the process.

After winning a WNBA championship with the Chicago Sky and being named Finals MVP, Copper is on top of the world. And yet, the 27-year-old star still finds joy in the grind. As the party fades and the enormity of the last year begins to sink in, Copper is just starting to reflect on how exactly she got here.

“The most rewarding aspect of it is just me looking back on my process, from being traded from D.C. to coming to Chicago,” Copper tells Just Women’s Sports.

“Even throughout our season, we hit adversity early … we won seven, we lost seven, but for us to really come together and really lock in and heighten our sense of urgency once the playoffs hit and to win a championship, it’s like you look back on your process and you’re like, ‘I wouldn’t change anything, because things wouldn’t be the same.’”

Drafted seventh overall by the Washington Mystics in 2016, Copper started in just three games for the team before being traded to Chicago in 2017. Copper struggled to find playing time in her first few seasons with the Sky, as well, starting 10 games in her first season and just two in her second before exclusively coming off the bench in 2019.

The 2020 bubble season changed everything for the guard, as she started every game alongside veterans Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley, averaging a career-high 14.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.

While it’s hard to view Copper now as anything but unstoppable following her dominant playoffs performance, her rise through the ranks was never promised or prophesied. But that didn’t stop Copper from believing it would happen.

“I trusted myself and I trusted the grind and trusted I would be rewarded,” she says. “I think that that was really what it was for me, is just constantly, constantly putting my head down and keep putting the work in so that when I was given the opportunity, I would never look back.”

img
(Courtesy of adidas)

The stay-the-course mentality that helped Copper earn a spot on the Sky’s starting five is also what propelled her to a WNBA trophy, an achievement she attributes to the team’s collective focus and work ethic.

“I think those single-elimination games were so important for us. Like, so important,” she says.

The Sky, coming into the playoffs as the sixth seed, had to dispatch both the Dallas Wings and the Minnesota Lynx in first- and second-round single-elimination games before their semifinal series against Connecticut.

“I have not seen our sense of urgency hit that new height all season,” she says. “Once we got to the semifinals, we treated those games like single-elimination games. We were so locked in. That’s why I appreciate the single-elimination games — the sixth seed didn’t matter to us.”

Copper says after losing Game 2 of the semifinals to the Sun, the Sky promised themselves they would not go back to Connecticut. She says that clinching the “very tough, very physical” series against the No. 1 seed prepared the team for the Finals.

Standing between Chicago and the WNBA trophy was another tough opponent in the Phoenix Mercury. In a contentious series that spurred rumblings of a new WNBA rivalry, Copper sparred with Phoenix’s Sophie Cunningham in a now-infamous moment that inspired many memes on social media. Though Copper calls the tussle “nothing serious,” she says this type of competitiveness is ultimately good for the WNBA.

“I appreciate the league wanting to create rivalries, because I think that it’s important for women to be able to be passionate and to be feisty and for that be OK,” Copper says. “We are very competitive, we are the best at what we do, so those moments — they happen. The fans love it. They love us to be passionate about it. And those things happen within the game, and I think it’s good for women’s basketball.”

After clinching the Finals trophy, Copper immortalized the photo, selling merch emblazoned with the iconic staredown. “Everything is not always pretty,” she says. “We are gonna be feisty out there, and those things happen, so I think that it’s important for the league to continue to let us be us and to allow us to be passionate.”

Copper’s first round of T-shirts and sweatshirts quickly sold out, speaking to the rising star’s popularity among the Chicago fan base. The love is mutual, with Copper crediting the raucous crowd at Wintrust Arena as a critical factor in the Sky’s championship run.

“The fans, they really showed out,” she says. “I think that having Game 3 and Game 4 sold out was huge. I think they really came out to support us.”

The Sky have been the toast of the town ever since, with fans flocking to downtown Chicago for the team’s championship parade, something Copper doesn’t take lightly.

“I think we got so much love from the city. Riding through the city, you saw little kids coming out of school, little babies come out of daycare, older people were out there, there were people out there with walkers. Like, the city really came out,” recalls Copper. “And it was a Tuesday. People had work. So for the city to really come out and show love like that, it’s like wow. Thank you, Chicago.”

img
Ruthy Hebard, Candace Parker and Kahleah Copper (Courtesy of adidas)

While the city has embraced her, Copper’s future with the Sky isn’t set in stone as she enters the first unrestricted free agency of her career. The guard can’t definitively say if she plans to be back in the Windy City next year, but she does admit she’s approaching free agency with an open mind and is interested in seeing what’s out there.

“I love Chicago, so I’m just gonna enjoy it for that matter, just enjoy the free agency and just make good decisions,” she says.

No matter where she ends up, Copper’s role on the court is likely to evolve. Just as Candace Parker filled a leadership role that was previously missing in Chicago — bringing something Copper calls “that been there, done that” mentality — the 27-year-old has also now been there and done that, climbing to the top of the WNBA as Finals MVP.

“I was just a sponge, and [Parker] was just giving me everything she had every single day, just pouring into me. I think it’s my due diligence to do the same for whoever next year — me giving it to the next player in order for us to be successful,” Copper says.

img
(Courtesy of adidas)

The Philadelphia native isn’t just interested in leading on the court; she’s also committed to giving back to the game of basketball in the offseason. Through her partnership with adidas, Copper has fully outfitted her free annual basketball camp in her North Philadelphia neighborhood.

“This year, adidas really stepped up. They really took care of me,” she says. “They were able to provide basketballs, they were able to provide sneakers, water bottles, gift bags, T-shirts, socks — I was able to provide these kids with a lot of things.”

Copper’s hope is that, through her partnership with adidas, she can continue to support young, aspiring athletes coming out of her hometown.

“I think it’s just important for me to never forget where I came from, and to be able to inspire the little girls that are here so that when they grow up and they make it, they’ll want to do the same thing for the next little girl,” she says.

A lot has changed for Copper in the last year — making the All-Star team, winning a league championship and taking home the Finals MVP. One thing that remains constant is her next-up mentality, whether on the court or in her hometown of Philadelphia. While she already has her sights set on earning a Defensive Player of the Year nod, Copper is also focusing on enjoying the moment and appreciating where the easily-praised, often-difficult “process” has gotten her.

“It’s just finally starting to sink in now,” she says. “Like, wow, we won a WNBA championship. Wow, I was Finals MVP.”

Clare Brennan is an Associate Editor at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @clare_brennan2.

Napheesa Collier is giving the Chicago Sky all the credit after the Minnesota Lynx fell to the eventual champions in the WNBA playoffs.

“Chicago came out playing no games with us,” Collier said on the Tea with A & Phee podcast, referring to Minnesota’s single-elimination defeat. The Sky went on to win the WNBA Finals in a storybook ending that was almost too good to be true.

“It’s the story that you see in movies, like someone that gets drafted, they go away, they win there, they come back home and win it in the first year,” said A’ja Wilson of Candace Parker’s WNBA championship with her hometown team.

“When she called Lailaa over, the joy on her face,” remarked Collier of the now-iconic moment where Parker embraced her daughter following the Finals win, with Wilson adding, “I lost it at that part.”

Chicago’s slow start to the season and perseverance through the team’s playoff push also inspired both Collier and Wilson.

“Those are the moments you say ‘cherish,’ but when they look back on this, this is an epic story, huge, especially for a team like Chicago that was what — 16 and 16 to end the season.”

The Sky’s sixth seed makes the WNBA title even more unlikely and remarkable. “That shows that anyone can make it, too, everyone is good,” said Collier.

“I don’t want one or two seed,” joked Wilson. “Let me grind it out.”

The standout performer for Chicago was undoubtedly Finals MVP Kahleah ‘KFC’ Copper, who both Collier and Wilson shouted out.

“KFC was killing it. She took over the whole series,” said Wilson. “It was like a different mode, she was just so locked in. To see ‘Kah’ playing like that… she is so hard to guard because she is one of the quickest players in our league.”

“Do not let her get in transition, stop the ball because you will lose,” warned Collier.

Overall, Wilson says Copper and the Sky’s success showcases the depth of the WNBA. “It goes to show how good our league really is from top to bottom.”

You can listen to Collier and Wilson’s full playoffs recap on Tea with A & Phee.

Kahleah Copper has granted Sophie Cunningham’s wish by putting the now-infamous photo of the two on a T-shirt.

When asked about the photo on Monday, Cunningham addressed the incident.

“Are you talking about the play where she grabbed my neck?” Cunningham responded. “Everyone knows she grabbed my neck. I probably would’ve got ejected for doing that.”

“Put me on all the T-shirts you want,” she added. “My hair looked nice.”

Copper, the 2021 WNBA Finals MVP, responded by dropping the merchandise on her website on Wednesday. Along with an MVP T-shirt and hoodie, fans can purchase a “Never Forget” T-shirt or hoodie.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Sky brought the door Diana Taurasi allegedly broke to their rally.

Sophie Cunningham addressed the now-infamous photo of her and Kahleah Copper during player exit interviews Monday night, the day after the Phoenix Mercury dropped Game 4 of the WNBA Finals to the Chicago Sky, 80-74.

Copper, named Finals MVP on Sunday for her play in the series, was charged with a common foul in Game 2 after getting into a tussle with Cunningham, who had dived for a loose ball on the court.

“Are you talking about the play where she grabbed my neck?” Cunningham responded to a reporter’s question about the incident. “Everyone knows she grabbed my neck. I probably would’ve got ejected for doing that.”

“Put me on all the T-shirts you want,” she added. “My hair looked nice.”

The Mercury guard later backed up her comments on Twitter.

The play Cunningham is referring to caused much controversy during the Finals series. The WNBA fined Diana Taurasi $2,500 for pushing a referee who was trying to break up Cunningham and Copper after the whistle.

Taurasi later said she was just trying to get to Cunningham and didn’t know she had pushed an official.

Kahleah Copper is the 2021 WNBA Finals MVP.

The Sky star was awarded the honor following the team’s championship-sealing 80-74 win over the Phoenix Mercury.

Copper has been the anchor for Chicago throughout the playoffs, putting up 18.2 points per game, with 53.2 percent shooting. The 27-year-old took on Phoenix’s veteran opposition with poise during the Finals as well, notching 22 points and shooting 60 percent from the field for a series-turning Game 3 win.

“I worked so hard and my teammates and my coaches believed in me, and I just stayed down until it was my turn,” said Copper during the MVP award presentation.

Kahleah Copper’s emphatic charge through the 2021 WNBA Playoffs continued as the Chicago star notched 22 points in the Sky’s 86-50 Game 3 rout of the Mercury.

Sinking 20 points in the first half alone, Copper shot 6-for-8 from the field, nearly outscoring the entire Mercury team, who ended the half with 24 points to the Sky’s 46.

Though Copper’s Finals’ success feels like it happened overnight, teammate Allie Quigley says that the 27-year-old has been preparing for this moment for a while now.

“Honestly, I think that she had just years of overseas experience, just getting better every single year, and she was just patient, waiting for her opportunity, and I think she knew going into the bubble that she was going to have that opportunity,” said Quigley after Game 3, “She just took advantage of it. She was ready. I think the main thing was she was ready and she was prepared for it.”

Copper and the Sky have the opportunity to close out the WNBA Finals at home on Sunday, with Game 4 airing on ESPN at 3 p.m. ET

 

 

PHOENIX — Two days after the WNBA celebrated the 25 best players in the league’s 25-year history during Game 1 of the Finals, Sophie Cunningham couldn’t get the image out of her mind.

As she reflected on the moment Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper and other basketball icons walked onto the court for the ceremony at half-court, the third-year Phoenix Mercury guard realized she might never again see that many WNBA legends in one place. It also reminded her why she was sitting on a Zoom call with a group of high school girls basketball players the night before the biggest game of her career, sharing her story in the hopes of inspiring young women who want to be in her position one day.

“Those are people who started our league, and you were kind of in awe and you wanted to make them proud,” Cunningham said Tuesday night after speaking to 40 girls from two Phoenix high schools, who took part in the panel discussion, a mindfulness session and a basketball clinic at the Footprint Center as part of the WNBA and NBA’s Her Time to Play initiative.

“But it also is our responsibility to make it,” she continued. “You might not see the change now, but you might see it in 10 years for the younger people.”

Cunningham, 25, can appreciate the power of a role model. Growing up in Columbia, Mo., she wasn’t around a lot of people who played professional sports and could show her what it took to get there. When she started traveling for basketball, Cunningham met players from the East and West coast who had the types of connections and resources she never did.

“It’s a college town and that’s about it. Everything else is farmland,” she said of her hometown.

So, Cunningham looked up to her parents and her older sister, who turned almost everything into a competition in their house, and soccer star Mia Hamm. “I just thought she was a badass,” Cunningham said, “and I was like, ‘I want to be that. I could be that one day.’”

Chasity Melvin, Mercury assistant coach and former WNBA player, described a similar upbringing during the panel Tuesday night.

Drafted into the WNBA in 1999, two years after its inception, Melvin didn’t have a stable professional women’s basketball league to aspire to while she was growing up in rural North Carolina. Instead, she drew inspiration from her dad’s belief in her and the daily competitions with her two brothers and two sisters.

“You just know where you come from,” Melvin said. “I think Sophie and I already know our history and how hard it took us to get here. So it’s nothing to try to give back to the young girls because we were once those young girls.”

img
Local high schoolers participate in a basketball clinic at the Footprint Center in Phoenix. (Courtesy of the WNBA)

The day before Cunningham and Melvin spoke on the panel, along with former WNBA star Marie Harris and AT&T’s Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Jamika Doakes, Sky guard Kahleah Copper took part in a similar conversation with girls aged 10-17 from the Chicago area. Her Time To Play, launched in 2018 with the purpose of empowering young women through basketball and recently expanded to reach 20,000 girls, held the two events in between Games 1 and 2 of WNBA Finals week.

Copper, leading the Sky’s pursuit of their first championship after a breakout season, explained to the girls over Zoom that it took her a while to realize she was good enough to play in the WNBA. A naturally shy person, she said the player they now see on the court is her “alter ego.”

Not being afraid to show your competitive side is something Cunningham also preached to the Phoenix high schoolers. Our society often confines girls and women into a box, expecting them to look and act in a way that fits conventional standards of femininity. Cunningham, known for her spirited play on the court, rejected that concept.

“You don’t have to look a certain way. You don’t have to be a certain color. You don’t have to be the most athletic,” Cunningham said. “I clearly don’t jump the highest, I’m not the quickest. But I do things well and I try to do them as best I can every single day.

“So I just want, especially young females, to be confident in who they are and know it’s OK to be goofy. It’s OK to smile, laugh, but also be super competitive and put someone on their ass.”

As the Sky and Mercury prepare to meet again for Game 3 Friday night in Chicago, driving the players is not only the chase of a WNBA trophy but also the appreciation of their careers coming full circle.

“We’re in the middle of the WNBA Finals and I’m making time for these kids because it’s important,” Copper said. “It’s important to inspire them so that when they grow up and make it, they’ll be like, ‘You know what, somebody inspired me and I’m going to inspire the next generation.’”

Hannah Withiam is the Managing Editor at Just Women’s Sports. She previously served as an editor at The Athletic and a reporter at the New York Post. Follow her on Twitter @HannahWithiam.

The Chicago Sky kicked off their WNBA Finals campaign with a dominant 91-77 Game 1 win over the Phoenix Mercury on Sunday.

After an exhilarating Game 5 win on Friday, Phoenix looked fatigued, while a well-rested Chicago punished the Mercury, getting out in transition early and often.

Kahleah Copper led all scorers with 21 points, adding ten rebounds, three assists, and two steals. The Sky star is the tenth player ever to record a double-double in their WNBA Finals debut.

Five other Chicago players scored in the double-digits, with Candace Parker adding 16 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals and Allie Quigley sinking 18 points while collecting three boards and dishing out two assists.

“We just gotta freshen up,” said Phoenix Mercury head coach Sandy Brondello in the post-game press conference, revealing that the team would take Monday off, alluding to the Mercury’s fatigue.

The Phoenix Mercury and Chicago Sky will both get a chance to rest up with Game 2 scheduled for Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.