Candace Parker is a straight shooter.
To keep borrowing basketball metaphors, she knows the score. Especially sitting in Wintrust Arena on Monday. If she didn’t keep her promise back in 2021, there wouldn’t be a reason to retire her jersey.
“I don’t think I’m sitting here unless we have a banner,” Parker said. “To be honest with you, I wouldn’t want to be sitting here unless we had a banner in the rafters.”
Fortunately for Parker, she’s one of the few. Few athletes like her grow into their roles as true and bright-burning stars. It’s something a sports franchise is never guaranteed to have, and it’s something Chicago sports has lacked since she left for Las Vegas in 2023 as the 2021 Chicago Sky remain the last professional sports championship for the city.
For most people, the only true guarantees are death and taxes. For present-day Chicagoans, it’s death, taxes and sports heartbreak.
That wasn’t always the case.
For Parker, her childhood had three guarantees.
“My childhood – I grew up in the nineties as a lot of people in the Chicagoland did – it was eat Portillos, eat at Giordano’s and go to Grant Park in June because the Bulls were going to win the championship,” Parker said. “Those three things were for sure.”
That’s why she’s a born winner.
Two IHSAA state titles, two NCAA titles and three WNBA titles to her name later, Parker had her jersey raised to the Wintrust Arena rafters. The Sky made Parker the second jersey retired by the franchise since Allie Quigley was the first earlier this summer.
There was no way Parker didn’t deserve it. She came home in 2021 when she could have gone anywhere in the league to bring her own championship to Chicago. Just like Jordan did all those years. Just like the ‘85 Bears did. Just like her Cubs did in 2016.
She followed through, co-authoring the last professional sports title in Chicago.
How many Chicago stars can say this? How many have promised the promised land and actually delivered on it?
This is a city so starved for championships, it’ll bargain for winning records and playoff appearances. Parker did it in her first year.
She’ll be the first to tell you the odds didn’t look great. The Sky were 16-16 going into the playoffs.
“We were bad, let’s be honest,” Parker said, as if over half the teams in this city – including the present-day Sky – would be elated to finish with a .500 record.
Parker still led the Sky to a title in one of the greatest playoff runs this city has ever seen.
It’s because Parker is a rare breed of athlete. She’s the kind that could defy losing. She was the basketball player who gave each team she played on a chance to win, simply because she was there. Parker grew up in an era where that was the norm.
“Living in the city, it was like winning was the bar,” Parker said. “If you didn’t win, like there was nothing else. So, to see the Stanley Cups, to see the Chicago Bulls, to then be a part of bringing a championship to Chicago is surreal to be honest with you.”
The best teams in Chicago sports history only deal in absolutes.
The 1985 Bears were arguably the best team to ever play. The Blackhawks’ dynasty defied the odds and won three titles in an era that discouraged multiple titles. The 2005 White Sox had one of the greatest postseason runs in MLB history. The 2016 Cubs eviscerated a 100-year curse with one of the greatest Game 7s ever played. The 1990s Bulls were one of the greatest dynasties that all of professional sports has ever seen.
The Sky fit into that discussion because of Candace Parker.
There were the Elena Delle Donne years, where the Sky came close to winning it all. It took Parker, arguably the greatest women’s basketball player of all time, to bring the Sky to where they could never go before.
It was a moment in her career where it all came full circle. Parker had her jersey retired in Los Angeles earlier this season, which is where she won MVP awards and won her first championship. She was in a different part of her life then; seeing her jersey retired in Chicago validated her more experienced status. Parker connected the past, present and future.
“Every journey is different, but it was especially amazing to bring my kids back here and see the city and see basketball through their eyes,” Parker said. “I think that’s the difference. It was a grind in LA, like I was trying to figure it out. I was a new mom. I feel like that was like the upbringing for little me and then now it’s like the experienced me. I get to come back and kind of reflect.”
When we reflect on Chicago sports stars now, we see what could be. Angel Reese is the face of the present-day Sky. Caleb Williams could finally be the star quarterback the Bears have wanted. Matas Buzelis, Colson Montgomery, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Connor Bedard could be game-changing stars.
None of them captivated Chicago like Parker did. Even if you’re the kind of person who vehemently says they don’t watch the WNBA, you knew what Parker was doing for this team.
“On the way to the playoffs, game four, the lions were in Chicago Sky jerseys,” Parker said. “This whole city was excited for us.”
Those kinds of players – who defy losing, turn a deficit into a win and shine brighter than the sun itself – are in short supply in Chicago now.
For Parker, it was the understanding of what it all meant instead of the simple desire to be the best.
“Winning in Chicago,” Parker said, There’s nothing like it.”