SKY HIGH

Kahleah Copper isn’t supposed to be here. The reigning WNBA Finals Most Valuable Player arrives at Soho House in the West Loop wearing a green-and-tan puffer vest, camo pants, and a pair of khaki Yeezy insulated boots that look built for some very cool and very cold space travel. “I told myself I would never spend another winter in Chicago after last year,” she says, laughing. Spoken like a true Chicagoan.

The Chicago Sky guard and forward has just returned from Spain, where she went to play for Perfumerias Avenida, a pro team in Salamanca, not to escape the Midwestern winter. She’s back in the country for just a few days to take care of some promotional campaigns and to visit her family in Philadelphia. Sitting in the restaurant at Soho House, she’s quiet at first, tired and hungry after a full day of filming for a sponsor. She scans the menu and orders the meatball appetizer.

Copper is soft-spoken and leans back into the booth when she talks. But she springs to life when I ask if she did anything differently last off-season, ahead of her sixth WNBA season, to help her achieve the best year of her career.

She takes out her phone and flips, searching for a specific picture. “These are my kids,” she says, smiling and presenting a locker room photo of a women’s college basketball team grinning and pulling at their matching white shirts to call attention to the photo printed on them.

The image they are wearing is the photo of the 2021 WNBA season: Taken during Game 2 of last year’s finals, it shows Copper standing over fallen Phoenix Mercury guard Sophie Cunningham, her face just inches away from Cunningham’s as she stares down at her with a look that says, Try me one more time. I dare you. The “kids” wearing this photo are the Purdue University Northwest women’s basketball team. Most WNBA players, including Copper this past year, spend the off-season playing in Europe, where contracts are often bigger than in the WNBA. But after the 2020 season, Copper stayed home and worked as a college coach—an unusual arrangement she credits with making her a better leader and communicator.

“It was good for women’s basketball,” Copper says, her voice rising and her hands flying as if she were back in that Game 2 moment. “We aren’t even allowed to be like, ‘And one!’ We aren’t even allowed to celebrate without the refs being like, ‘Hey hey!’ Like, damn! We are the best at