This season, Azurá Stevens is a good fit. The Chicago Sky forward, who stands 6 feet 6 inches tall, has spent 2026 recovering from a knee injury that postponed her season debut. Her current stats reveal a tale that began long before the games.
In April, Stevens signed a three-year, $3.15 million contract with Chicago, earning an average yearly salary of about $1.05 million. She is rejoining the team that won a championship in 2021. It truly is a homecoming.
Before deciding to return to the city she has described as meaningful in interviews since signing, she had spent the preceding three seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks, where she finished second in the Most Improved Player voting. She said at the time, “This city means everything to me,” and there’s a genuineness to that kind of statement that’s easy to write off as clichés until you see how she’s performed since.
It hasn’t been an easy return. She was sidelined throughout the season due to a bone bruise to her knee sustained during Unrivaled play. She didn’t make her Sky debut until May 23 and was subject to a severe minute restriction. She began playing about 15 minutes per game, but as the season has gone on, that restriction has gradually loosened.
She is now closer to 22 or 23 minutes per game. Stevens has been open about how mentally taxing that stretch was, citing weekly therapy sessions and relying on family during the darkest moments. It’s a slow build, the kind that tests patience more than talent.
She currently averages 10.7 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game while shooting 41.8 percent from the field. Even though those numbers aren’t particularly striking on their own, the trend line is more significant than any one statistic.
Over her last few games, she has averaged closer to nine rebounds per game, and head coach Tyler Marsh has noted that as Stevens has become more comfortable in her role, a more assertive version of herself has emerged. Given the limitation, her production per minute indicates that more will be available once she’s completely unleashed.
It’s important to keep in mind how she got here in the first place. Stevens has always had a somewhat unusual profile for her height—a forward who can stretch the floor with a three-point shot, block shots on the other end, and do both without needing to dominate the ball. She was drafted sixth overall by the Dallas Wings in 2018 following stellar seasons at Duke and UConn. Because of her versatility, Chicago’s front office decided to bring her back, hoping that her rim protection and shooting would help a team still figuring out who it is after losing forward Rickea Jackson to an ACL tear earlier this season.
The Sky have struggled with rebounding all season and are currently near the bottom of the league in defensive rebounding percentage, so it’s unclear if their season will result in anything significant in the standings. However, observing Stevens’s development this season gives the impression that her individual path is significant nearly independently of the team’s performance. Game by game, minute by minute, she is regaining confidence in her body, and the numbers are beginning to match the version of herself that she is obviously still pursuing.
