Juste Jocyte has made it pretty clear this week that she's not happy with how her rookie season with the Golden State Valkyries played out, and she definitely wishes she had been given the opportunity to contribute to the team's WNBA Finals run against the Atlanta Dream. Jocyte, who was drafted by the Valkyries as their first-ever WNBA Draft pick in 2025, decided to defer coming over from Europe for one season and joined the team this year.
The Chicago Sky, as an organization, has faced a lot of challenges over the last few years. The team has rotated through rosters at a dizzying speed, it doesn't seem like their facility will be finished anytime soon, they saw Angel Reese leave for the Dream during free agency this year, and they suffered a series of injuries that really set back what little momentum the team managed to rustle up this season, over and over again.
So Sky beat reporter Alissa Hirsch's suggestion that the Sky figure out a trade that would bring Jocyte to Chicago for the 2027 season is... not a crazy one. At all. In fact, it might be a winning scenario for all involved parties. The Valkyries could end up snagging a first-round draft pick in either 2027 or 2028 out of the deal, the Sky would get a player who, at the very least, is a powerful wing and who could be developed into more, and Jocyte might actually get what it seems like she wants: the opportunity to be the star of a team.
Hirsch made a few key suggestions in her article. If, like the Valkyries have planned to do, the Sky also wanted to develop Jocyte into a point guard, she'd get to learn under Courtney Vandersloot. Though Sloot may be past her prime, she's still a fierce competitor, and it's also been pretty clear this season she's priming herself for some kind of coaching role sooner rather than later. Jocyte could learn the ropes from a seasoned veteran who knows every square inch of them, which is the type of training she might not be able to easily find elsewhere.
The Sky isn't exactly the last troubled organization in the WNBA, but there are still plenty of reasons to believe the team can succeed at a level that surprises everyone. Trading for Jocyte could be the first step in unlocking that process — and it might even be one of the best moves the team could make.
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