Candace Parker sat with Sky head coach/GM James Wade, Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley after her first day of practice talking about tactics for Friday’s season opener against the Los Angeles Sparks (7 p.m., Marquee Sports Network).
“We have to look out for the shot fakes,” she said as they stripped their practice shoes and socks off.
Parker’s first game against her former team should have been nearly a year ago when the Sparks came to Wintrust Arena on May 28. An ankle injury kept her sidelined for eight games and all three of the Sky’s games against the Sparks in 2021.
In her second season with the Sky, after helping lead them to a WNBA championship, she’ll face her old team in a highly anticipated matchup.
“Obviously I have so much love for LA as a franchise,” Parker said. “I was there 13 years. But we’re not going to win a championship tomorrow, so it’s a game. I didn’t play in the home opener last year, so I’m excited for that.”
In her 13 seasons with the Sparks, Parker averaged 16.9 points on 48.2% shooting, 8.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists. She led them to a championship in 2016, won two league MVP awards, was named rookie of the year in 2008 and defensive player of the year in 2020.
This Sparks team looks a lot different than the one Parker played on in 2020 before signing with the Sky. For starters, coach/GM Derek Fisher signed Liz Cambage this offseason in one of the biggest free agent signings of the year. Parker’s close friend and former teammate Chelsea Gray signed with Vegas around the same time Parker made her decision to return home.
There will be some familiarity on the court though, starting with Kristi Toliver who is back with the Sparks for the first time since winning a championship with Parker in 2016. Then, there’s Nneka Ogwumike, the Sparks’ franchise player who alongside Parker helped bring the organization to a place of dominance.
Together the duo led Los Angeles to nine straight playoff appearances (2012-2020) that included two WNBA Finals runs (2016, 2017).
Last season, without Parker, the Sparks missed the playoffs for the first time since 2011, the year before Ogwumike was drafted with the first overall pick. Parker compared the feeling of her leaving Los Angeles in an interview with Bleacher Report’s Taylor Rooks with the feeling of throwing the keys of your car to another person.
The person she said she was tossing the keys to was Ogwumike.
“For me initially [Candace’s departure] felt like when you walk out of a store and your car isn’t where you parked it,” Ogwumike said to the Sun-Times in March. “I think that’s a normal emotional reaction, because I care and we’re more than just teammates. At the end of the day, what we built is still there.”
This WNBA season is ripe with storylines but for the Sky the most significant are their back-to-back championship pursuits and the looming retirements of Parker and Quigley who is out for Friday’s season opener.
Neither have said when they will play their last game, but both have said they’ll know when it’s time. Parker more specifically has said, she doesn’t want to cheat the game. When she can’t play the game at the standard she holds herself to, that’s when she’ll walk away.
“Even after last year I had to evaluate if I could come back and give what I needed to give to be able to be what this team needs me to be,” Parker said. “Every year is it’s own challenge.”
