WNBA: Chicago Sky trade for Ariel Atkins

Just when the waters of WNBA free agency had seemed to have settled, the Chicago Sky made a splash.

The Sky are sending the No. 3 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft to the Washington Mystics in exchange for Ariel Atkins. The Mystics will also receive 2027 first-round pick swaps rights with the Sky, in addition to Chicago’s 2027 second-round pick.

For Chicago, that’s a steep price for the two-time All-Star and five-time All-Defense guard who is in the final year of her contract. However, Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca sees the addition of Atkins, in combination with Chicago’s other offseason alterations, as moves that will prepare the team for a playoff push, saying in a statement:

Ariel has made a tremendous impact on this league since her rookie year. She is an excellent role model for her teammates and an all-star caliber contributor. As one of the league’s top defensive specialists and a consistent scorer, she is a threat on both ends of the floor who will help us build a playoff-contending team in Chicago.

From Washington’s perspective, the transaction is the franchise’s first, tangible step toward the rebuild that implicitly began with the firing of general manager and head coach Mike and Eric Thibault and the hiring of Jamila Wideman and Sydney Johnson as general manager and head coach, respectively. Speaking to ESPN about the decision to move Atkins, Wideman presented it as “a clear reflection of our commitment to build toward a new era,” further explaining:

It’s a great time if your plan is to draft, develop, nurture and compete. The future of this game is bright. A lot of those lights are shining right now in college, certainly….you have to position yourself to become a destination for the best talent the game has to offer. We felt like this year and this year’s draft was a tool we could use to do that. As we look forward, we believe the same is true for upcoming drafts as well.

Wideman also did not rule out moving other Washington veterans, including Brittney Sykes, Stef Dolson and Karlie Samuelson, asserting:

We are looking to move with intention and to move with excellence and admittedly towards [something] not necessarily as quickly as possible, but to do it as well as possible. Our ultimate north star here is to build an organization that can nurture sustainable contention and not just a flash in the pan.

The Mystics now have the No. 3, No. 4 and No. 6 overall picks in the 2025 WNBA Draft.