Midway through Sunday’s loss to the Seattle Storm, Kamilla Cardoso seemed to have found her groove.

The rookie entered the locker room at the half with six points on 3-for-6 shooting and a team-high eight rebounds, including five offensive boards to help the Chicago Sky pull out to an eight-point lead. Cardoso created a clear mismatch for the Storm around the rim, giving the Sky a clear path toward a third-straight win on the road.

But barely five minutes into the second half, Cardoso headed to the bench for a normal substitution and didn’t come back. She remained on the bench as the Sky slumped into a shooting skid and lost their advantage in the paint.

After the game, coach Teresa Weatherspoon said Cardoso did not sit out due to injury or discomfort.

“She’s fine,” Weatherspoon said. “Just gave her a moment and (Isabelle Harrison) was playing fairly well for us. That’s it.”

But Cardoso’s absence clearly altered the Sky’s ability to compete in Seattle — to a large enough extent that Storm head coach Noelle Quinn attributed the center’s absence to her team’s comeback win.

This second-half benching was the latest falter in a stop-and-start rookie season for Cardoso. And while Cardoso has made an immediate impact on the boards, her overall performance leaves plenty of room to question — is the rookie meeting expectations?

Cardoso had a delayed debut in the pros after missing the first six games of her rookie season with a shoulder injury, then spent the next few weeks saddled with a minutes restriction. But those early looks have still showcased why the Sky selected Cardoso with the No. 3 pick in a star-studded draft — she’s a dominant force on the glass whose physicality can overpower opponents in the post.

And Weatherspoon is not shy about setting the stakes for Cardoso’s future in the WNBA.

“Kamilla is going to be one you’re going to talk about forever in this league,” Weatherspoon said. “She will be known as one of the best bigs to play this game. You can mark that — and mark that right now.”

But the Sky also drafted Cardoso with the understanding that developing her into that rare potential would be a long-term project. Cardoso only started one season at South Carolina, making demonstrable growth from the first game of her senior season to her final performance as the tournament MVP in the NCAA championship game.

Cardoso shot only 44.3% from the field in her first 14 games. The Sky are beginning to find Cardoso more consistently — bumping up her shot production to 8.2 attempts in the last six games — but her shooting efficiency stagnated, dropping to 40.8% in that stretch.

Weatherspoon emphasized patience for Cardoso and No. 7 draft pick Angel Reese, who both entered the league with shooting labeled as their main area of growth as pro players.

“(Cardoso) is getting the looks — now it’s about finishing,” Weatherspoon said. “It’s about getting the position you want, getting to your spots and finding it. It’s about strength and power under the basket, with the way post players are today. Getting to your spot, getting your base and finishing with power.”

But Cardoso isn’t just a bucket-getter for the Sky — and her potential as a WNBA player spans across the court.

The rookie center is already delivering on expectations around the rim, averaging 7.8 rebounds per game. Nearly half of those rebounds (3.5) are on the offensive boards, which reflects both a strength and weakness for Cardoso. The 6-foot-7 center is an indomitable force when she has the proper footing under the basket. This extends to other areas of her play — for instance, her 1.1 blocks per game.

But Cardoso also struggled with mobility in the early stretch of her rookie season. She doesn’t track down rebounds outside of her zone, often fails to shift for weak-side defensive maneuvers and gets stranded up by the arc if her initial attempt at a screen doesn’t take hold with her designated guard.

This isn’t an issue of fitness or physical skill. Cardoso’s teammates regularly remark on her speed and agility on the court, which often catches smaller players by surprise. But she prefers to stick to her comfort zone within five feet of the basket, where she thrives offensively as a dump-off option for creative slashers like Chennedy Carter and as an almost-automatic offensive board when her teammates miss.

Building confidence in Cardoso away from the basket is a key for the Sky this season — but Weatherspoon said the rookie’s eagerness to learn makes her believe that process will be smooth.

“One thing about Kamilla that’s absolutely amazing is that she’s easy to coach,” Weatherspoon said. “Very easy to coach. And she’s going to do greater things as we move on into this season because she’s only going to get better.”

But even with that coachability, Weatherspoon might feel more comfortable closing tight games without Cardoso on the court.

This is a major challenge for Cardoso as a rookie player and Weatherspoon as a first-year coach — how to balance the on-court development of raw talent with the pressing desire to win enough games to make the playoffs.

Yet even as they navigate this equilibrium, Weatherspoon said she’s unconcerned about Cardoso’s ability to grow through her rookie season.

“Kamilla is in a great position,” Weatherspoon said. “She’s getting better every single day at practice — I’ll always talk about practice first — and then she’s getting there on the floor. And it looks good. It looks great to all of us and she’s happy on the floor playing. That’s all that matters — the happiness she puts out there, the joy she puts out there. Everything else follows.”