Kelsey Plum and the Los Angeles Sparks have been in the news this week for reasons that the franchise probably wouldn’t have predicted almost 550 days ago when the Sparks traded for the 5x All-Star and 2x WNBA champion.
Plum, who had been having a career year before a bunch of injuries kept her out for over a month, wasn’t in the news because she’s set to return to play for the Sparks on Sunday against the Portland Fire at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. Plum was in the news instead because of the lingering reports that she will “most likely” be dealt at the trade deadline that’s just a half an hour before she’d be expected to play on Sunday.
“I’m going to be where my feet are,” Plum kept telling reporters on Thursday each time she was peppered with questions surrounding the deadline and her future with the Sparks.
When Plum arrived in Los Angeles the idea was that she would lead the charge to not only get the Sparks back to the playoffs, but back to competing and winning at the highest levels. It appeared to be a dream come true for Plum who grew up around an hour and a half from where the Sparks play, and has vivid memories of her mom taking her to games.
“The ownership and the legacy that this franchise has had, I’m very well aware and I understand that…we’re here to compete,” Plum said during her introductory press conference in late February of last year. “There’s expectations to win right away and I know for me, there’s a level of intensity and work ethic that I do bring to the table but really I’m just grateful for this opportunity to show that being one of the best players in the world and to take this franchise back to where it’s been and where it will continue to go.”
But now less than two years later, the Sparks sit five games out of the final playoff spot and are 11th out of 15 teams in the WNBA standings. Multiple reports have made it clear that Plum most likely doesn’t intend to sign with the Sparks as a free agent for the 2027 season.
The Sparks, who fired their General Manager Raegan Pebley less than a month ago, could very well be in a position where Plum just leaves in free agency. If that happens, the Sparks will be remembered for trading away the opportunity to draft and roster now All-Star big Dominique Malonga for at least four seasons on her rookie scale deal in exchange for at most two seasons of Plum.
The Sparks haven’t been to the playoffs since 2020 and most likely will miss them for a sixth straight season in 2026. Why is one of the league’s original franchises—especially with the backdrop of the league’s 30th season—continuing to muddle in mediocrity?
Why has relevance and success been such an uphill battle? Regardless of Plum being traded or not, it’s abundantly clear that the Sparks have continued to operate in a vicious cycle of impatience and inexperience which has in turn led to incompetence.
How did this cycle begin? Let’s trace through it.
The last time the Sparks made it to the postseason was in 2020 during the COVID-19 bubble season, and it was their final season with a big three of Candace Parker, Chelsea Gray and Nneka Ogwumike.
After 2020, Parker and Gray left for the Sky and the Aces in free agency respectively, and would eventually win titles for both teams in the next two seasons. Parker then reunited with Gray a year later in Las Vegas to win another title albeit while hurt for the majority of the season.
But why did those two leave? The Sparks head coach at the time, former NBA player Derek Fisher, famously benched Parker in a playoff game the season before the bubble season. In addition to a desire to bring a title to her hometown Chicago, the benching proved to also play a role in Parker’s decision.
Gray chose the Aces not only because of their talented roster, led by a young A’ja Wilson, but also because Las Vegas offered a level of professionalism and amenities that the Sparks did not.
Fisher was hired prior to the 2019 WNBA season after he had only coached in the NBA for two seasons and recorded a 40-96 record at the helm of the New York Knicks. With limited WNBA experience and a lack of general institutional wherewithal, Fisher was then elevated to General Manager in addition to head coach months following the 2020 season, and before Parker and Gray would leave in free agency.
Ogwumike was one of five players on that 2021 roster who are still active players in the league today. A Sparks team with Ogwumike, Brittney Sykes, Nia Coffey, Karlie Samuelson and Erica Wheeler wasn’t going to win a title, but it also narrowly missed the playoffs as well finishing a tie-breaker short of the postseason.
Fisher ended up signing two talents prior to the 2022 season in Liz Cambage and Chennedy Carter, two players known for causing tension in the locker room. Cambage hasn’t played in the league since she left mid-way through the 2022 season and Carter was recently waived by the Aces after 13 games played. Fisher was fired on June 7, not even halfway through the 2022 season. The Sparks finished 11th in the standings but just two games out of the final playoff spot.
After years of inexperience during the Fisher era, the Sparks decided to pivot and hire 2x WNBA coach of the year and 2017 executive of the year Curt Miller away from the Connecticut Sun. Miller coached the Sparks to a 17-23 record that season, only missing the playoffs by just a game. The Sparks had some of the most impactful injuries in the league, according to WNBA injury tracker over at The IX Sports.
With multiple losing seasons in a row, the Sparks did well in the draft lottery and were awarded the No.2 overall pick in the 2024 draft. Months following the lottery, the Sparks hired Pebley, a longtime friend and colleague of Miller’s to perform duties of General Manager after Karen Bryant, an executive who hired Miller to coach, had moved on.
Miller, who had handled both coaching and executive duties on his own while in Connecticut, could finally lean on someone who he knew well while also playing a role making decisions. After Ogwumike announced her departure in free agency from LA to the Storm, Miller and Pebley executed a trade with the Storm to land the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 draft. The Sparks selected talented rim protector Cameron Brink at No. 2 overall and elite scorer Rickea Jackson at No. 4 in the 2024 draft.
Miller wanted to lean into his young talent especially since this draft class, one that included Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, had so much cultural cachet. But then once again injuries impacted the success of the Sparks in 2024 as Brink tore her ACL mid-season. With another dynamic draft class coming, Miller and Peebly leaned into the future rather than the present and the Sparks finished in last place in the standings going 8-32.
While the Sparks missed the playoffs again, there was clearly a vision in LA about how to transition the franchise into its next phase. UConn phenom Paige Bueckers was going to headline the 2025 draft class. But then the cycle continued, but this time it was impatience rather inexperience driving what came next.
The 2024 regular season ended on September 19 and then Miller was unceremoniously fired as head coach less than a week later. While this was shocking to WNBA circles, the writing was on the wall once LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke published a column on the final day of the regular season.
Plaschke had a one-on-one interview with Sparks minority owner Magic Johnson which detailed how Johnson felt about the franchise that finished in last place. He was clearly displeased although it wasn’t clear how closely he had been a) paying attention as to why their record was unsatisfactory and b) aware of what Miller and by extension Pebley were planning to do with such great lottery odds.
But regardless of Johnson’s lack of awareness, the trigger was pulled days later, and Miller was out of a job. Pebley stayed. Miller ended up getting some comeuppance once the Dallas Wings hired him to be their general manager and he was then able to draft Bueckers.
But Pebley, a coach turned WNBA broadcaster turned first-time executive, leaned on Miller when it came to the nuts and bolts of building a roster and major transactions. She didn’t have a ton of salary cap management experience. She needed to learn the league’s collective bargaining agreement too.
The cycle continued as Pebley’s inexperience was obvious from the jump. Former Utah women’s basketball coach Lynne Roberts was hired by Pebley to succeed Miller. Roberts came to the WNBA with a reputation of being able to install a high octane free flowing offense based on modern spacing concepts.
Months later, Pebley and Roberts landed Plum through a three-team trade. The Sparks sent the No. 2 overall pick in the 2025 draft, which Seattle used to select Malonga, to the Storm. In return, the Storm dealt Jewell Loyd to the Aces, who then sent Plum to Los Angeles.
But then even with Plum on the roster ready to roll, Roberts had her welcome to the league moments. She and her coaching staff struggled in the first half of the 2025 season and so much so that Pebley hired former Dallas Wings head coach and current Chicago Sky assistant coach Latricia Trammell as a coaching consultant, especially lending expertise on the defensive end.
The Sparks improved their record over the 2024 season but still missed the playoffs by just two games. But Plum wasn’t going to quit after a year and the Sparks were giving her the opportunity to play closest to home while also being the team’s number one option, something that wasn’t on the table in Las Vegas.
But facing the pressure to try to win-now, Pebley and Roberts decided to stack the Sparks with veterans and that involved trading Jackson, a gifted offensive talent over to the Chicago Sky for a player in Ariel Atkins who hasn’t been an above average player in a couple of seasons.
Also, LA got a commitment from Ogwumike to return to the franchise that drafted her. The Sparks re-signed Dearica Hamby to a long-term three-year max contract.
The results haven’t paid dividends especially since 2026 first round pick Ta’Niya Latson is now a developmental player on the Aces. The Sparks once again have a well-oiled offense but also a historically incompetent defense.
And then when Plum went down with a left leg injury in the latter half of June after she possibly rushed coming back from a sprained right ankle in May, the Sparks have struggled winning games, going 2-10 since Plum’s long-term absence began. They will face the Fire on Sunday trying to snap a six-game losing streak.
Want to guess what happened next? Another LA Times column from Plaschke was published but this time with a new voice. Former baseball executive Farhan Zaidi became a special advisor to Sparks majority owner Mark Walter, and in this latest Plaschke column Zaidi hinted at his involvement with the Sparks.
“Now we have to be open for anything,” Zaidi said. “Everything has to be on the table for us. We have to take a long-term perspective rather than focusing on the rest of the season.”
Huh. That seems new. Zaidi, who also has no WNBA experience, seems to be speaking with a very different tenor. It’s one the Sparks haven’t really leaned into as of late. Have the Sparks finally accepted their fate? Instead of rejecting a rebuild and leaning into impatience, are they poised to tear it all down to go for a star of tomorrow like hometown hero JuJu Watkins?
But to really see this project returning through, the idea that the Sparks can return to relevance and success, the organization is going to have to break their own cycle and hire executives that have experience.
LA can’t fire those people. Star chase, sure, but do so through the draft instead to start. The Sparks will need to express patience in order to get a long-term reward.
The organization is also going to have to do exactly what current star Plum has been saying all week. “Be where your feet are.”
