Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The Chicago Sky fired coach Teresa Weatherspoon, who was hired in October and led the WNBA team to a 13-27 record in her first season.
Sources told the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and Fox 32 Chicago about the firing Thursday night.
Sky rookie sensation Angel Reese, who led the league in rebounds per game (13.1), said on social media that she was "heartbroken" and that Weatherspoon "didn't deserve" the firing.
"I'm literally lost for words knowing what this woman meant to me in such a pivotal point in my life," Reese wrote Thursday on X. "She was the only person that believed in me. The one that trusted me. Many don't even know what it's like to be a Black woman in sports when nobody believes in you.
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"You had a tough job. All the crazy circumstances that we went through this year and when your back was against the wall, you always believed. I came to Chicago because of you. You were an unsung hero in my life. We built a relationship in a short amount of time that will last forever."
Weatherspoon, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 2010, was an assistant coach for the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans from 2019-20 through 2023-24. She previously was head coach of the Louisiana Tech women's basketball team and of the Westchester Phantoms of the American Basketball Association.
The Pelicans parted ways with Weatherspoon in 2023. The Sky hired her as head coach about four months later.
Weatherspoon's Sky led the WNBA in rebounds (1,464), but scored the second-fewest points and posted the second-worst field goal percentage (42.2%) and worst free-throw percentage (74.2%) in the league.
The Sky finished 10th in the regular-season standings, failing to make the playoffs for the first time in six years.
Former head coach and general manager James Wade, who led the Sky to a WNBA title in 2021, left the team in the middle of the 2023 season to become an assistant coach for the NBA's Toronto Raptors.
