On Friday, the defending WNBA champions will begin the road to back-to-back titles against the LA Sparks. In celebration of the beginning of another season, I did a breakdown of the schedule and predicted the Chicago Sky record. Factoring the team’s talent, age, and quality of the competition, I have the Chicago Sky going 22-14.
My Formula
Predicting a record is extremely hard. You don’t get to see how other teams look, who gets hit with the injury bug, and the quality of the team you are assessing. The way to predict this is simple; if the team is generally good (which the Sky are), you have them beating all teams you think are subpar. Against teams that you consider to be good, you have them playing around .500. If you’ve correctly assessed the team’s talent, you should be close to the actual record. They’ll beat some of those good teams and lose to some of those bad teams, but overall, you’ll be near the actual record. Okay, with that beautiful and brilliant scientific methodically explained let’s break down the schedule month by month to see how I got to that record.
For May, I have the Sky going 5-3. They’ll lose opening night to the Sparks, win against New York, then go on a four-game winning streak before losing to Phoenix. I do have them beating some top teams this month, but overall I’d say this would be a solid to start to the WNBA season.
June is more positive. I have just four losses for the team, with two of them coming from Connecticut and the two coming from Las Vegas and Washington. The Washington loss is mainly from the fact that the team has back-to-back games against the Mystics. It’s tough to win both of those games regardless of a team’s talent.
July is the definitive Summer month. The WNBA season is right in the middle of its season, and the contenders and pretenders are starting to take shape. I went against my own formula on this one and gave the team a few surprise wins and losses. I have the Sky losing to Atlanta and New York and beating teams like Connecticut and Los Angeles. Ultimately, the Sky will have a 7-4 record for July.
To close out the season, I have the Sky being pretty mediocre. They’ll go 3-3 and lose to Washington, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. My rationale here is they’ll be resting players, and other teams might have more to play for late, which will lead to a wild ending to the season.
Closing Thoughts
If I’m right, the Sky will have a 22-14 record, which would be the third-best winning percentage in team history. That winning percentage is great, but we all know what the main goal is; ending the season with another title. The road is long and just beginning, but another WNBA championship for the city of Chicago in the final year of Candace Parker’s contract would be as close to a storybook ending as you can get. Let’s see if we can get it.
Sky in the Chi 