{"id":215356,"date":"2025-10-15T18:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/215356\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:01:07","slug":"wnba-fans-are-split-on-the-portland-fires-head-coaching-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/215356\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA fans are split on the Portland Fire’s head coaching choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

WNBA fans are split on the Portland Fire’s head coaching choice <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Fire’s appointment of former NCAA champion and NBA scout Ashley Battle as their first-ever VP of Basketball Operations was not the only major development coming out of Portland on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The WNBA’s newest franchise, slated to begin play alongside the Toronto Tempo in 2026, has also decided on its first-ever head coach — and that decision is splitting opinion online.<\/p>\n

According to a since-deleted post on LinkedIn, the Fire have hired Cleveland Cavaliers assistant Alex Sarama<\/a> as their head coach. Sarama joined the Cavaliers as Director of Player Development in July 2024 after holding the same role for the Rip City Remix — the Portland Trail Blazers’ G League affiliate.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Portland connection, Sarama and Fire general manager Vanja Cernevic worked together in British basketball, when both were employees of the London Lions.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Portland Fire tap former UConn, WNBA star for key front office role<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite Sarama’s background and resume in player development, some fans<\/a> on social media<\/a> are disenchanted with the hire<\/a>. They saw the Portland opening as a chance, in a predominantly-Black league, for a brand-new franchise to hire a Black woman as a head coach; Seattle’s decision to part ways with Noelle Quinn means there are no female Black coaches in The W at present.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Was a woman not available?” one fan wrote<\/a>\u00a0of the Sarama hire. Another remarked<\/a> that Sarama was only promoted to assistant on Kenny Atkinson’s Cleveland staff just three months ago.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

However, other observers pointed to Sarama’s track record<\/a> as the continuation of a trend that demonstrates the WNBA’s growth. This school of thought centers on Sarama’s embrace of\u00a0Constraints-Led Approach (CLA)<\/a>\u00a0in his coaching — the use of which led Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> guard Kelsey Plum<\/a> to career-changing revelations.<\/p>\n

Sarama also is further proof that NBA assistant coaches are more readily jumping to the WNBA for a shot at the top job. This season’s WNBA Finals is a great example of how those gambles are paying off. Both the Phoenix Mercury<\/a> (Nate Tibbetts) and the Las Vegas Aces<\/a> (Becky Hammon) hired longtime NBA assistant coaches to lead their teams.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Under Tibbetts, the Mercury reached the finals for the first time in four years; Hammon has led the Aces to three titles in four years.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether Sarama finds anywhere near the same level of success that Hammon, or even Tibbetts, has enjoyed. But the Fire are going to give him a chance.<\/p>\n

More WNBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA fans are split on the Portland Fire’s head coaching choice originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[104254,49,48,2357,25358,631,3460,104253,632,459,3461,14748,104252,6683,7675,82,630],"class_list":["post-215356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-alex-sarama","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-head-coach","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-london-lions","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-nba","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-portland","tag-portland-fire","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-seattle","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}