{"id":764505,"date":"2026-04-30T21:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T21:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/764505\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T21:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T21:59:13","slug":"reloaded-sparks-set-sights-on-making-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/764505\/","title":{"rendered":"Reloaded Sparks set sights on making the playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> <\/p>\n

Expectations around the Sparks<\/a> are higher than they\u2019ve been in some time. During Thursday\u2019s media day, that was evident.<\/p>\n

The Sparks reloaded for this season, adding veterans Nneka Ogwumike<\/a>, Erica Wheeler<\/a> and Ariel Atkins<\/a> to returners Kelsey Plum<\/a> and Cameron Brink.<\/a><\/p>\n

After falling just two games short of the playoffs last season, this year\u2019s goal is clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransformation takes time, and it\u2019s a process, right?\u201d Plum said. \u201cAnd I think I see that we\u2019ve had tremendous growth. To bring in players like Nneka, Erica Wheeler and then Ariel, we have everyone in camp fully healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, really, our depth and our talent is immense this year, and the mission is very clear from everyone on this team and equipped with the jump and training camp, very excited about the hunger and sense of urgency that we have. We want to win now, that\u2019s very important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her own right, coach Lynne Roberts<\/a> has a new comfort level in her second season as well with a much more intentionally built team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a lot more aware of what to expect,\u201d she said. \u201cI think our training camp was much more efficient. I\u2019ll be the first to admit that I\u2019m confident in my ability and coaching, but I was new, and it\u2019s a learning curve, just like it is for players to go from college to pro, it was for me too. So, learn from making mistakes. Learn from doing things right.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it feels different.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> Expectations around the Sparks are higher than they\u2019ve been in some time. During Thursday\u2019s media day,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":764506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[1501,68967,10587,48329,1910,42155,56898,449,24566,313966,26804,5950,62,313967,6620,67,132,68,232,1628],"class_list":["post-764505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ariel-atkins","tag-bench","tag-cameron-brink","tag-erica-wheeler","tag-game","tag-goal","tag-plum","tag-point","tag-rebound","tag-reloaded-sparks","tag-roberts","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-stacy-johns","tag-time","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116495906802633450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}