All eyes are on North Philly’s Kahleah Copper as the Chicago Sky begin their WNBA title defense

PHOENIX — Kahleah Copper’s competitiveness was the topic of conversation as Candace Parker strolled through a Footprint Center hallway following the Chicago Sky’s dominant victory over the Mercury to close out the regular season.

And when Parker reached the tunnel, her eyes serendipitously caught Copper running up and down the court with a friend’s two young nieces.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Parker said while watching Copper, a North Philly native. “Like, she’s trying to win a race against 2-year-olds.”

That quality also translates in more formal settings, of course. And following her second consecutive All-Star season, the Sky will need a relentlessly productive Copper as they begin their WNBA title defense Wednesday against the New York Liberty after setting a franchise record for regular-season wins (26-10) and nabbing the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

“She was big for us as far as her leadership and showing that her skill was elite and putting herself in the upper tier, where we always thought that she was,” Sky coach James Wade said Sunday. “Now, I think everybody else is kind of like, ‘Oh, Copper is doing Copper things.’ Now that the expectations are there, she’s meeting them all the time.

“She’s one of the best players in the game and, most of the time when she steps on the floor, she’s the best player on the floor. So now I think she’s getting that respect.”

That is quite the praise, given that the Sky’s roster also features a two-time WNBA Most Valuable Player in Parker and two other 2022 All-Stars in Courtney Vandersloot and Emma Meesseman. Yet it has been an appropriate step for Copper after winning Finals MVP at the culmination of the Sky’s stunning 2021 championship run.

In 2022, Copper was the Sky’s leading scorer for the second consecutive season, averaging a career-best 15.7 points per game. The 27-year-old wing, though, points to her uptick in rebounding (a career-high 5.7 per game) and three-point consistency (35.6% on 3.3 attempts per game) as examples of growth in her seventh WNBA season.

“[I’m] trying to make the defense switch it up on me,” Copper said. “… [I’m] helping the posts rebound and getting back there and getting us extra possessions offensively. When I’m seeing [the game] and I’m attacking the boards or I’m getting us big stops, that’s important.”

Copper shrugs off her sharp ascension since becoming a starter during the 2020 bubble season, saying her teammates “constantly remind me and put me in situations to be successful [and] to lead the team.” She and Parker always share a pregame chat, the tone shifting from silly to serious to sentimental depending on the circumstances. Vandersloot, who ranks third in WNBA history in assists, regularly provides Copper with in-game motivation.

But Copper’s own self-reflection while watching film during this summer’s All-Star break reminded her to remain aggressive.

“You watch games and it’s like, ‘Mmm, I should have did this’ or, ‘I should have did that,’” Copper said. “You really see the game and you see things that you could do different, things that you could get better at. … It [didn’t] frustrate me at all. It’s just motivation like, wow, if I was playing well then, imagine how much better I can be.”

» READ MORE: How Philly-born pro women’s basketball players Kahleah Copper and Keisha Hampton are working to inspire the next generation

After that, Copper totaled three of her four double-doubles this season in the Sky’s final 12 games. On the first possession of Sunday’s win in Phoenix, she immediately drove to the basket for a layup. And after missing her next four shots and picking up two first-quarter fouls, Copper flashed her blend of athleticism and tenacity when she converted a finish inside through contact, got ahead of the defense for a transition bucket and followed her own miss with a putback. She also immediately pushed the ball off a rebound to start a possession that ended with an Allie Quigley three-pointer to put the Sky up by 55-33 in the third quarter.

“She’s going to play hard. She’s going to run every time she gets the ball,” Parker said. “And I think that’s what’s made her into a star.”

Copper stays connected to Philly through conversations with her family. She was also back in town earlier this month to host a girls’ basketball camp at Cristo Rey High School, squeezing the visit in between games because she knew the importance of her being there in person.

“You see the looks on their faces and you see them really want to learn from you,” Copper said. “To be able to inspire them and to know that some of them are going to be pros — not all of them, but some of them are going to be pros — and they’re going to remember how they felt and they’re going to want to do that for the next generation.”

Now, Copper’s focus is on defending the Sky’s championship. She acknowledges her team felt “zero pressure” last season, when it entered the playoffs as the sixth seed with a 16-16 record. This year, the Sky will need to navigate the WNBA’s new postseason format, which scrapped the single-elimination games in the first two rounds in favor of best-of-three series in the opening round before best-of-five series in the semifinals and finals. The top two seeds no longer receive a double bye to the semifinals.

So Copper knows it will be “really hard” for the Sky to repeat. No WNBA team has won back-to-back titles since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001 and 2002. Yet Copper trusts her ability to handle high stakes because of her personality, which she describes as “just … super chill.”

Chill, yet competitive — as demonstrated by that postgame on-court race.

“You recognize that playing against [Copper],” Parker said. “But to be around that and just her energy and her care, she’s a great person. And I think that sits well with her teammates and obviously us watching her.”

» READ MORE: ‘She’s a leader’: Kahleah Copper’s back-to-back WNBA All-Star honors are a sign of her star status