u/LovePeaceTruth

Good vibes only please. 😍

Caption: "Go behind the scenes of the Atlanta Dream's two preseason games in Episode 3 of Atlanta Dream All Access."

Queen Skylar is playing so well! Beautiful, elite, winning basketball. Love to see it! 😊

Skylar played 33 minutes against the Fire and Skylar played 35 minutes against the Valkyries.

That’s too many minutes.

Winning is important and Skylar is clearly the best player who is consistently impacting winning.

But winning is not more important than Skylar’s health and longevity in the game.

Tyler needs to figure out how to play Skylar for less minutes with the same impact, and use the players on the roster to give Skylar more breaks.

Skylar and Rickea should not internalize the criticism of the Chicago Sky. It has nothing to do with them personally.

Skylar Diggins ended her media day availability by asking everyone to “be nice to us all damn summer and fall.” To me, that means she’s already internalized some of the Sky criticism and no one is criticizing Skylar. She’s a queen and a legend.

A few weeks ago, Rickea said, “We’re under a microscope.” Which was repeating the “microscope” language that Sloot used in a prior interview. Sloot is under a microscope.

Rickea is NOT under a microscope. Sloot, Jeff, Alter, Tyler, and the Sky organization are under a microscope. They caused it, with their words and actions over the last 20 years. That is THEIR problem, not Rickea’s. Not Skylar’s. Not Dijonai’s. It is the Sky Organization’s problem to deal with.

Sloot, Tyler, and Jeff should not be in team meetings telling the players “we” are under a microscope.

That is not the players’ burden to carry. That is not the players’ problem. There is no “we” when it comes to the microscope.

And it is gross that Sloot/Jeff/Tyler are putting that kind of emotional strain on players who just got there, who haven’t done anything wrong.

Skylar and Rickea just got there. They haven’t seen the Sky organization’s true colors, or the true colors of the players and staff around them. They haven’t had the full Chicago Sky Experience yet.

Making the new players feel the burden and responsibility of something they did not cause, is another indicator of the organization’s lack of integrity: “I messed up and now everyone is watching, please make me look good by playing well so everyone forgets how much I messed up.”

That’s not Skylar, Rickea, or Dijonai’s job. That’s not their responsibility. That’s not their problem. And the past 2 years the Sky org was happy to pay players to do the bare minimum and give no effort. So don’t put that extra pressure on the new players. Why do they have to be the workhorses to fix the Sky’s transgressions?

Rickea and Skylar should never carry water for people like the Sky org, Jeff, Sloot, and Tyler.