After nearly three decades at the collegiate level, Lynne Roberts decided to make the jump to the WNBA, and in November accepted an offer to become the Los Angeles Sparks’ newest coach — their third in the last four seasons. Her task was clear: turn the once-proud franchise around.
The Sparks have not made the playoffs since 2020, which is not only the longest postseason drought in franchise history, but the longest active one in the league. Last season was a new low. They recorded the fewest wins in a season in franchise history and finished in last place at 8-32.
Roberts was not brought in to lead a rebuild, however. In another major move during the offseason, the Sparks traded the No. 2 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft for Kelsey Plum. Neither the front office nor Roberts were shy about their goals heading into the season.
“I want to make the playoffs,” Roberts said. “I want to, and I think with the roster we have, we can. Is it going to be hard? Yeah. Climbing is hard. Changing things is hard.
“But that’s where that process comes in, and being consistent, how I show up every day, showing up the same whether we win by 20 or lose by 20, that stuff all adds up and my expectation is for the players to learn how to do that, too. And, it’s the chop a tree down analogy. You don’t do it in one swing. You just keep chopping and then it falls. And so my end goal is that we make the playoffs.”
After a 6-14 start, it appeared that going from last place to the playoffs in one season was an even harder change than Roberts anticipated. But the Sparks quietly won their last two games before the All-Star break, and on Saturday stunned the reigning champion New York Liberty on a Rickea Jackson buzzer-beater to extend their winning streak to five games.
Though still 11-14, the Sparks have pulled within one game of the eighth-place Washington Mystics and 1.5 games of the seventh-place Las Vegas Aces. They quietly have the fifth-best offensive rating (104.7) in the league, Cameron Brink is closing in on a return and they have the fifth-easiest remaining schedule.
The Sparks still have a lot of work to do, but all of a sudden making the playoffs doesn’t seem that unrealistic.
“Part of learning to win is learning to just stay steady, and not get too high or too low or panic. And we didn’t,” Roberts said after beating the Liberty. “New York was coming at us… I’m just proud of these guys’ resilience. They’re buying in and they’re figuring it out and I have so much trust in them.”
Here are CBS Sports’ latest WNBA Power Rankings.
