Kamilla Cardoso found her rookie footing with the Chicago Sky — and she’ll use the offseason to grow more

Kamilla Cardoso knows she wasn’t always the easiest to deal with this Chicago Sky season.

In her defense, this had never happened before. When the rookie’s shoulder popped out of its socket in the first game of the preseason, Cardoso figured she could just grit it out. It hurt — a lot — but that wasn’t supposed to matter.

She got into it with team doctors. Argued with the trainers. Cardoso wasn’t exactly angry, but she couldn’t fully wrap her head around the idea of four weeks away from basketball, of ramping up slowly while the rest of her rookie class forged their paths into the league.

And she wanted back on the court. Needed it, actually. It was only three weeks into her professional career and four weeks since winning the national championship. Cardoso had given up too much — leaving her family and her hometown in Brazil at 15 to pursue basketball in the U.S., then waiting in the wings at South Carolina for three years — to hit the brakes this early.

“I didn’t know how to actually handle it, because it was something that never happened to me before,” Cardoso said last week during her exit interview. “So having to deal with the trainers, having a doctor telling me I had to sit out for four weeks — everything was new to me. I didn’t want to do it and I was giving everybody a hard time. But we were able to work it out.”

Eventually, patience paid off. While Cardoso’s rookie season was relatively quiet in comparison to her title-winning senior year at South Carolina, she established a foundation of potential as a formidable post in a league dominated by bigs.

Cardoso averaged 9.8 points and 7.8 rebounds in 32 games, 29 of which were starts. Her production took a serious leap after the Olympic break, jumping to 12.8 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game while shooting 57.6% from the field. And she finished with the seventh-highest average blocks per game, surpassing fellow WNBA bigs Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Defensive Player of the Year front-runner Napheesa Collier.

The same shoulder injury cut Cardoso’s rookie season short. But in 32 games, the Sky clearly grappled with a serious challenge — how to effectively use the No. 3 pick in the WNBA draft.

Despite being a centerpiece for the offense, Cardoso took the second-fewest shots (​​7.6) of any starting center in the league. Her scoring lagged as a result, diminishing another offensive threat for the Sky as they struggled to keep pace offensively.

Part of the issue was execution. Cardoso finished in the top 10 of all centers in shooting efficiency (52.1%). But she lagged behind in finishing, shooting 57.2% at the rim while most top-level centers — Brittney Griner, Jones, A’ja Wilson, Stef Dolson, Aliyah Boston — averaged at least 60%.

“That’s something that bothers me a lot — my shooting percentage,” Cardoso said.

But the inability to maximize Cardoso’s skills on offense reflects a wider issue with the Sky’s tactics. For most players on the roster, the biggest complaint about the system was how much it relied on slowing the game down. In theory, this was the byproduct of feeding the ball through bigs Cardoso and fellow rookie Angel Reese.

Cardoso isn’t slow. In the early weeks, her teammates regularly voiced surprise at how quickly she manipulated her 6-foot-7 frame across the court. And she’s at her best at the rim when she receives the ball in motion, slipping screens and ducking around opponents with a swiftness that often places her into ideal scoring positions.

For most of the season, the Sky’s offensive schemes did not embrace this clear advantage. Instead, coach Teresa Weatherspoon drew up offensive plays that took an old-school approach to feeding the post: Get Cardoso on the block with her back to the basket, chuck the ball down low and let her go to work against a defender.

This didn’t work. While Cardoso has the tools to develop into a back-to-basket scorer, her footwork and finishing couldn’t withstand the seasoned defense of opponents such as Griner, Boston and Tina Charles.

Weatherspoon attempted to mitigate the issue over the Olympic break, installing a higher-tempo offense that put players in motion. But it wasn’t enough to jump-start the Sky, who now must approach the offseason with the central goal of creating a system that better utilizes Cardoso and Reese. The lack of effective scheming around Cardoso was one of the weaknesses of Weatherspoon’s approach in her first and only season coaching the Sky, which ended with her firing last week.

General manager Jeff Pagliocca approached this year as a growth period for the rookies. Despite clear deficiencies, the result, he hopes, was sufficient growth.

“They got to play heavy minutes this year,” Pagliocca said. “It’s a gift for them. I think they’re going to take a lot of lessons into next season.”

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Cardoso already is committed to taking a significant leap. She’ll take a short hiatus in Brazil to visit her mother and sister after missing out on a trip home over the Olympic break due to flight cancellations. Then, Cardoso will join the Shanghai Swordfish in the Women’s Chinese Basketball Association, which she selected as her offseason destination because of its heavy emphasis on post players.

Improving her shot is the central focus for Cardoso — and not just at the rim. Cardoso shot 60% in the midrange but took only 10 shots from outside the paint. (She did not attempt a 3-pointer, preserving her combined collegiate and professional percentage intact at a perfect 1-for-1.)

“As y’all can see, I can shoot the midrange — when I want to,” Cardoso joked.

Outside of finishing through contact and developing a midrange shot, Cardoso said she still plans to hone her defense in Shanghai, focusing on improving her switchability and shot-blocking timing.

Cardoso still hasn’t had time for a break — at least not a real one. The Swordfish kick off their season in mid-October. By the time she returns to Sky training camp next spring, she will not have gone more than a few months without playing a competitive basketball game for nearly 18 months.

But even amid that nonstop grind, Cardoso still found gratitude for her growth in the WNBA.

“Just being able to be in the league and live my dream,” Cardoso said. “It was a dream since I was 13, so I’m just so happy that I was able to be here and experience everything.”