PORTLAND, Or. -- The Sparks (10-17) are beginning a three-game road trip to open August. Their first game will be in Oregon as they take on the Portland Fire (11-18).
But as of this writing, the trading deadline is about 18 hours away. The rumors have gotten stronger about the Sparks dealing Kelsey Plum.
According to reports coming out of All-Star Weekend, it was rumored that Kelsey Plum, who is under contract for only the 2026 season, may not want to re-sign with the Sparks after the campaign is over. So the team is taking calls for a Plum deal as they don't want to risk losing her for nothing.
The Sparks have pretty much showed they were going all in on this season. They surrounded Plum with veterans like Nneka Ogwumike, Erica Wheeler, and Ariel Atkins to go with mainstays Dearica Hamby, Rae Burrell, and Cameron Brink. They eschewed the youth movement and slow build with a quick fix to contendership. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going that path but, unfortunately, for the Sparks, it didn't work out as injuries to Plum and Brink as well as losing games, whether it's a blowout or getting beat in the last few minutes, dumped them near the bottom of the standings. Los Angeles is mired in a six-game losing streak and an overall record of 10-17.
As for Plum, she understands it's the business of the game.
"The thing about professional sports is like it's a business at the end of the day," Plum said during practice on Thursday. "People have to do what's best for them and I respect that and I'm not taking anything personal. For me, I'm going to be where my feet are. I play for the Sparks so on Sunday, I'm going to suit up and I'm going to give them whatever minute restriction blank fill the blanking minutes of hell coming off the bench. And I'm actually really excited about it."
Plum is the only player listed on the Sparks injury report and her status is "probable." And that status can be taken however people want to.
"There's a lot of things that are in the unknown and those are things outside of my control," Plum said about possibly staying in Los Angeles after this season. "For me, my control is to be here to play the highest level basketball I can possibly play and help my team win games."
There's really not much more to say. It is a bit of a distraction as the Sparks prepare to play against the Fire.
"Until I hear that we've made a trade, these are the guys and and I'm cool with that," Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said on Friday.
Roberts did say they're in communication with the front office about what's happening.
"You just show up and do your job. There's things you can't control," Roberts said. "There's things you can. This is something I can't control. Neither can the players. So we've got to focus on the task at hand. That's going to Portland and and doing our best to beat them."
So what about the Fire?
"Portland plays unique defensively. They'll try to kind of junk it up and I mean that in a respectful way," Roberts offered. "They'll trap, they'll hedge, they'll run and jump press, they'll change pick and roll coverages... you're not going to know exactly what they're going to do. So trying to put our guys into situations where they can just be comfortable with showing the different options and different things. So it's good to have a day to actually work on stuff like that."
The Fire lost ex-Spark Sarah Ashlee Barker to an ACL injury. But they still have talented players in sniper Bridget Carleton, dynamic point guard Carla Leite, inside presence Megan DiLeo (formerly Gustafson), and defensive pest Emily Engstler.
The Sparks are 13th (of 15 teams) in defensive rating this season. The good news for them? The Fire are one of two teams that are worse than them.
And the last time they faced each other, the Sparks probably played their most complete game of the season. That was also in early June when the team was healthy and the Sparks looked more like the team that they envisioned for 2026.
It's not all bad for the Sparks despite the losing streak. Erica Wheeler and Ariel Atkins have both picked it up offensively; Wheeler has scored double figures in five of her last seven games while Atkins is averaging 15.5 points in her last two. Cameron Brink has picked up where she left off (three of her last five games were in double digits in scoring) and Rae Burrell had four 20-point games in the month of July.
In reality, the Sparks have played well in five of their last six games. But their play didn't result in wins and, in the end, it's the results that count.
Still, whether they'll have Kelsey Plum on the team by Sunday or they'll continue to run with the team that they've had, the Sparks need a win. Trying to get better odds for the first pick of the 2027 WNBA Draft sounds like a longshot so they'll have to do the best they can with what they got.
The organization is coming to the realization that they may have to reset yet again after this campaign. But for now, they'll have to play with Fire.
*Quotes from practice are from John W. Davis of the Southern California Newsgroup.