Skylar Diggins signed with the Chicago Sky in April, expecting a real home base. Instead, she spent the season rehabbing a knee injury and watching the team's practice facility push back deadline after deadline.
Diggins confirmed Tuesday that she'll miss the rest of the 2026 season due to a knee injury that has sidelined her since July 3. But in a press conference hours after the announcement, she made clear the injury wasn't the only thing that defined her year in Chicago .
" That would be the biggest frustration with this season, just never feeling like we had a home base ," Diggins said. " Sometimes we have limits or restrictions on how many hours we could be there, and that affects everything when you're trying to be a pro and get in what you need. "
The Sky's $60 million practice facility was supposed to open before the season started. It got pushed back multiple times before the team confirmed in July it wouldn't be ready until after the season ends. In the meantime, Chicago bounced between local colleges and Wintrust Arena, even paying $160,000 to practice at the University of Illinois in Chicago for roughly a month.
Diggins connected that instability directly to the Sky, which led the league in games missed to injury this season. She didn't hedge on the cause.
" No shade, but you know we need resources ," Diggins said. " Obviously leading the league in injuries, I think it's not coincidental. "
She expanded on that point in comments shared by Front Office Sports' Kareem Copeland, tying the facility delay to work the players' executive committee had pushed for beyond salary and revenue share.
" A lot of the work that our player executive committee did outside of, obviously, revenue share and salaries and those very important things, it was making sure that we had a certain standard to the resources that we needed to run and be successful as professionals ," Diggins said. " A lot of things were out of our control with the practice facility, and wanting to be in that. I think a lot of us were promised that. We thought that was going to be the case. "
Diggins, 36, signed a two-year, $1.86 million deal with the expectation that Chicago's infrastructure would match its roster ambition. The Sky also brought in Azurá Stevens and DiJonai Carrington in free agency and re-signed Rachel Banham , one of Diggins's closest friends on tour. None of it offset a season where the roster couldn't stay healthy.
Asked whether she would have signed with the Sky knowing the facility wouldn't be ready, Diggins didn't offer a clean answer.
" That's hard to say ," she said. " I understand how those things go as far as delays or whatever the case may be, or how it could be very nuanced as far as things that are out of your control. "
The new facility is set to open in Bedford Park, a suburb just outside Chicago's southwest border, and Diggins said the team plans to tour it next week. She's already framing next season around it.
" I expect that next year, we won't lead the league in games missed to injuries ," Diggins said. " And we'll be able to put together the full vision of what we wanted it to look like with all those resources. "
Diggins shut down any trade speculation and said she expects to be back in a Sky jersey in 2027.
