The day before the All-Star Game at the United Center, Barack Obama appeared at Home Court on the Obama Presidential Center campus in Jackson Park to address the league's best players — then briefly guarded Jonquel Jones. The Chicago Sky weren't in the room.

On the morning of July 24, the day before the WNBA All-Star Game tipped at the United Center, the best players in women's basketball gathered for practice at a court on the South Side. The host wasn't a team. It was a president.

Former President Barack Obama walked into Home Court — the basketball facility on the Obama Presidential Center campus in Jackson Park — and addressed the assembled All-Stars and coaches before their session. He greeted Jonquel Jones and Angel Reese by name, then, in what the Chicago Tribune's photographers captured, briefly stepped onto the floor and guarded Jones one-on-one. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was alongside him; Obama handed her the mic before departing. His summary of his own fandom: "I could not be a bigger fan."

That quote will travel. The moment beneath it is more specifically Chicago. The Obama Presidential Center spent years in legal and environmental review before breaking ground in Jackson Park. Home Court — part of that campus — exists because a South Side politician-turned-president put his institution on the same ground where he made his career. On July 24, that building hosted the thirty or so players who represent the current ceiling of women's basketball. The welcome was genuine and the setting was earned.

What the room didn't have: a Chicago Sky player. The Sky are 9-18, traded Angel Reese before this season started, and sent no one to the All-Star roster. Reese was in that gymnasium as a visiting dignitary. The gap between Chicago as a host city — presidential campus, United Center, eight-times-normal resale demand — and Chicago as a WNBA competitor has never been more visible than it was in that gym on Friday morning.

Obama got the league he deserved. The Sky still have to earn it.