For WNBA Star Kahleah Copper, Hoops Comes Full Circle Again

Nine years ago, Kahleah Copper was a hard-nosed guard out of North Philadelphia who was committed to Rutgers and averaged 20.4 points and 14.5 rebounds per game for Prep Charter. She’d led the Huskies to the state championship the previous year and to the Final Four as a senior, and when she arrived in Chicago for the year’s McDonald’s All-American game, she was thrilled to find that one of her favorite players would be addressing the group—WNBA star Ivory Latta, who would be moving on to the Mystics the following season.

Four years later, with the No. 6 pick in the WNBA draft, Copper was chosen by Washington—and Latta, then 33 and coming back from a knee injury, became a veteran mentor in her rookie year.  With the rosters for this year’s McDonald’s game being released this week, Copper was reminded of that neat bit of serendipity.

“To have that kind of full-circle moment was amazing,” she said. “She came in and just spoke to us, poured into us about how she was a McDonald’s All-American and how her career went after. I think the entire experience was fun, and I got to compete and I got to get better.”

That, really, has summed up the way things have been going for Copper, now with the Chicago Sky, in general lately. That means a lot of competing, a lot of getting better, and a lot of full-circle moments. She is coming off a season in which she accomplished what many thought she just would not be able to do—to follow up her surprising breakout performance in the WNBA bubble in 2020 with an even better year in 2021.

For her first four WNBA seasons, Copper was a role player, averaging 6.7 points on 41.5% shooting. When she hit free agency in 2020, she was considering looking elsewhere for a bigger opportunity, but then she had a sit-down with coach and GM James Wade. She could find herself with more opportunity, he told her, right there in Chicago.

“We had a conversation at a café in Chicago,” Copper said. “I was just thinking about other teams and exploring and he expressed, just the fact that he believed in me and what he wanted to see from me in the coming season. So, just him giving me the confidence that he actually believed in me and us trying to develop a relationship was important for me going forward. I was just like, ‘OK, I trust that this is what it’s going to be in the future.’”

‘This Year Was Special’

Of course, the onset of Covid-19 that winter delayed Copper’s opportunity to take on more of the team’s load. But when the league convened in Florida in late July, Copper was ready: She averaged 14.9 points and shot 49.6% from the field. She came back prepared last year to show she was no fluke, averaging 14.4 points on 45.9% shooting and earning an All-Star spot.

More than that, she led Chicago, which was only 16-16 in the regular season, to the WNBA championship. She averaged 17.5 points in the Sky’s upset over Connecticut, then averaged 17.0 in another upset, over Phoenix, in the Finals. Copper topped it off by being named Finals MVP.

“This year was special because we put together such a great team,” Copper said. “We were blessed to have Candace Parker come home and join us, her amazing leadership and her guidance. She came in and had the blueprint on what it takes to win. She came in and she just really changed things for us and also changed things for me. She was a big sister/mentor for me. And just teaching me, challenging me and I was a sponge trying to soak everything in and produce.”

And there was a full-circle feel to the championship for Copper and the Sky. While she was drafted by Washington back in 2016, she spent only one season with the Mystics before she was a last-minute addition to a blockbuster trade that sent Stefanie Dolson and a first-rounder to Chicago for star forward Elena Delle Donne. That worked out for Washington, which won the 2019 WNBA championship, with Delle Donne earning a league MVP trophy.

Two years later, it worked out, too, for Copper and the Sky, a rare example in sports of a trade that not only helps both teams, but leads to championship trophies.

“It’s funny,” Copper said, “because it really worked out for both sides, just how it was played out. Even just me being added to the trade late in the process, they were like, ‘No, let us get Kah in this deal.’ For it to work out where both sides win a championship? It is unreal. So, it is like, ‘Thank you, thank you.’”

Full circle. Again.