CHICAGO — The Sky made a WNBA Draft eve trade with the Minnesota Lynx that shaped their 2025 roster in a way they believe perfectly fell into their lap.

“We like to be aggressive,” Sky general manager Jeff Pagliocca said of the deal, which sent the Lynx’s No. 11 overall pick to Chicago in exchange for a 2026 first-round choice. “It netted us two players that we were dying to have.”

Those two players were Slovenian forward Ajša Sivka at No. 10 and TCU guard Hailey Van Lith at No. 11, both of whom Pagliocca and first-year coach Tyler Marsh believe fit the Sky’s mold very well.

“(Van Lith) has a winning mindset. She’s got a toughness about her,” Marsh said. “There’s a lot to like about where she is now as a player and a whole lot to love about where she can be moving forward.”

Van Lith was one of college basketball’s most prolific scorers with TCU last season, her first with the team after transferring from LSU. She averaged 17.9 points per game, helping lead the Horned Frogs to a school-record 34 wins and an Elite Eight appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

“Whatever my role is (in Chicago), I just want to contribute to the culture,” Van Lith told reporters in New York after her selection. “It’s more of an attitude, a mindset. I think I’m more than capable of doing that.”

Van Lith’s arrival in Chicago also means a reunion with Sky star Angel Reese, with whom she played at LSU.

“Angel has maintained contact with me this past year — I really appreciate her,” Van Lith said. “We both have respect for each other’s game. I’m just excited to get to be around her again.”

Working in tandem with Van Lith will be 19-year-old Sivka, who spent the past year with French pro team Tarbes Gespe Bigorre.

“We think she’s great — we think there’s not a lot of (players like her),” Pagliocca said of the 6-foot-3 forward. “When you’re watching players that young that have been pros for a number of years … she’s been able to have a lot of success playing against grown women.”

Sivka averaged 8.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists last season with Tarbes. Now she’ll play in a country she has never been before, but Sivka said she’s prepared for the challenge.

“The experience that I have playing in Europe … there were so many players that were maybe 16 years older than me,” Sivka told reporters in New York. “I think that experience will make the transition easier for me.”

The Sky rounded out their draft class in the second round with Notre Dame forward Maddy Westbeld and Texas A&M guard Aicha Coulibaly at Nos. 16 and 22, respectively. Marsh said he hoped the development of his newest players would put the Sky on the right track for 2025 after the team finished 13-27 last season.

“There’s a direct correlation between winning and developing,” Marsh said. “We want to set a level of expectations to the standard we want to play at — a championship standard. The timeline for us is continued growth. We want to be as competitive a team as possible from Day 1.”