North Philly’s Kahleah Copper settles in with the Phoenix Mercury — and with Natasha Cloud as a teammate

Kahleah Copper hasn’t been in Phoenix long enough yet to experience the really hot weather she knows is coming. But the North Philly native has been there long enough to settle in with her new WNBA team, the Mercury, whose preseason is underway ahead of the regular season’s tipoff on Tuesday.

That includes settling into a reunion with Broomall’s Natasha Cloud, an old teammate on the Washington Mystics when Copper was a rookie in 2016.

“I’ve been enjoying ‘Tash’ — her energy is very contagious,” Copper said Thursday in an online news conference hosted by the league. “Working on our team chemistry, and I think our team chemistry will be the separation for us.”

Copper, a Prep Charter and Rutgers alumna, moved west from the Chicago Sky this winter in a blockbuster trade after winning a title there in 2021. Cloud, a St. Joseph’s grad, joined from the Mystics, the only team she’d ever played for, as a free agent.

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After being leaders of their previous teams, now they’re parts of a veteran Mercury squad led by Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner. Big parts, to be sure, but there’s no doubt about who the top names are.

That was reinforced Thursday by Taurasi sitting at the same table as Copper and new coach Nate Tibbetts. Taurasi got the vast majority of the questions, with a big media group tuning in as they’ve done all week for a leaguewide slate of calls.

“It doesn’t matter how many accolades you have, Kah knows she’s tasted a championship, and she’s been WNBA Finals MVP,” Taurasi said. “When you win, that’s when you feel the most full, and I feel like we’re all chasing that again.”

Copper returned the compliment in talking about the Mercury’s potential for this season. The team that lost to Copper’s Sky in the 2021 Finals went out in the first round in 2022 and didn’t make the playoffs last year.

“We have championship experience,” she said. “Like ‘D’ said, you know, once you get a taste of that, that’s all you’re really chasing. And I think that having that experience, you understand sacrificing a little bit of yourself for everyone.”

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She gave an example of how the team’s chemistry has grown off the court in the short time they’ve been together this preseason.

“My confidence lies in those conversations that we have at lunch and the jokes and the stuff that we say to each other,” Copper said. “But everything is super genuine.”

Taurasi also praised Cloud for her personality and signaled she’ll be fine with having multiple outspoken characters on the team.

“Well, in my old age, I’ve become very quiet, so I’ll give all the accolades to Tash,” Taurasi said with her trademark sarcasm. “But you know what, I don’t necessarily know if it’s a matter of being outspoken or being an activist — I think it’s a matter of her being a genuine, truthful person. And over the years, I’ve been around a lot of players and coaches, media, and everyone can smell a phony.”

Cloud undoubtedly is not a phony.

“The one thing Tash is, is real. It’s who she is,” Taurasi said. “The passion she has for basketball translates into her life, into her friendships, and her relationships, and after competing against her for nine years, there’s a respect when someone brings it every single night as competitors. We know that, and it’s nice that she’s in our locker room now.”

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Another big story line that came up was the league’s announcement of using charter flights full-time this year. After WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert spoke Tuesday about it coming, the official word landed Thursday evening that they’ll start when the regular season does.

“We have been hard at work to transform the business and build a sustainable economic model to support charter flights for the long term,” Engelbert said in a statement. “While we still have a lot of work to do to continue to execute our strategic plan, we feel confident that the time is now to institute a full charter program to demonstrate our commitment to leading with a player-first agenda.”

It’s a long-awaited move for players’ well-being, not just in terms of physical health, but their literal safety.

Griner was harassed at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport last year by a person that the league called “a social media figure and provocateur” who filmed the incident and posted it on social media. That doesn’t happen to players in men’s sports leagues who don’t have to pass through public airport facilities when they travel.

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It costs a lot of money to fly exclusively charter, which is why it took the pandemic for Major League Soccer to start doing it. The National Women’s Soccer League still hasn’t yet. But now the WNBA finally will, and Taurasi is glad to see it.

“That’s been always a point of contention for us — as athletes, you always want the best opportunity to get to a city and be able to perform at a high level,” she said. “So to finally see that be pushed through, after so many years of players in this league doing it in a way that for a long time was a hardship, I’m happy for this next generation to be able to to really enjoy that. And we have to give thanks to all the people that came before us, who carried this league for a long, long time.”

The league announced that Delta Air Lines will run most of the flights. That served as a reminder that an easy way to get the money for charters is to get a sponsor to pay the bill.

“It’s exciting to add the WNBA to our prestigious roster of sports charter partners as we participate in this historic advancement in women’s professional sports,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said.