LOS ANGELES — Gabriela Jaquez walked off the court at Crypto.com Arena last Friday with a team-high 15 points and five rebounds. The box score didn’t capture the deflections, the extra passes, or the way she switched assignments without a second thought. That’s exactly how she wants it.
The Chicago Sky rookie has played 18 of the team’s first 23 games, starting 15 of them. She’s averaging 8.8 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.1 assists on 41.6% shooting from the field. Those numbers don’t tell the full story either, but they’re a start.
At UCLA, head coach Cori Close made a deliberate choice not to label Jaquez by position. She was too valuable as a forward who could handle the ball, a guard who could post up, a defender who could guard four positions. That flexibility translated straight to the WNBA. The Bruins had six players drafted this year, more than any other program. Jaquez went No. 5 overall, the second UCLA player selected after Lauren Betts went to Washington.
Versatility as a survival skill
“I think it’s super valuable to be versatile in this league,” Jaquez said before the game. “You look at so many players across the league and a lot of them have a lot of height, but they can handle the ball. They can shoot. A lot of five players can shoot the ball. You just want to be versatile. You don’t want to limit yourself to what you’re capable of.”
She’s not wrong. The WNBA has shifted toward positionless basketball faster than most fans realize. Wings initiate offense. Centers step out to the three-point line. The players who can’t adapt get left behind. Jaquez has adapted so quickly that the Sky have trusted her with starter’s minutes since she returned from an early-season injury that cost her five games.
That injury forced her to watch from the sideline just as she was building momentum. In her first four career games, she averaged 12.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 1.0 steals while shooting 53% from the field and 50% from three. When she came back, she didn’t slow down.
On June 17, in a tight loss to the New York Liberty, she dropped a season-high 22 points. Against the Sparks, she snagged two offensive rebounds and shot 6-of-12 from the floor. She tied Kamilla Cardoso and Sydney Taylor for the team high in scoring that night.
Basketball is about more than points
“I think it’s really important to impact the game in multiple ways,” Jaquez said. “You don’t want to just rely on one thing. So for me it’s just doing whatever I can to help the team. Last game it was deflections. I got a lot of deflections and I think just little things like that really add up throughout the game.”
That mindset explains why she’s been so productive even when her shot isn’t falling. The three-point percentage sits at 31.4%, which is fine for a rookie but not elite. Her free throw shooting is at 86%, which is elite. She’s not a one-dimensional shooter. She’s a connector — the kind of player who makes everyone around her better by simply being in the right place at the right time.
The Sky are still figuring out their identity at the halfway mark of the season. Jaquez is giving them something they didn’t know they needed: a player who refuses to be categorized. That’s rare in a league that loves labels. She’s making a case that the best thing you can be in the WNBA right now is hard to define.
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