{"id":352460,"date":"2025-12-18T03:29:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352460\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:29:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:29:13","slug":"former-wnba-mvp-accepting-big-time-coaching-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352460\/","title":{"rendered":"Former WNBA MVP accepting big-time coaching opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former WNBA star Sylvia Fowles\u00a0is joining the\u00a0Portland Fire<\/a>\u00a0as an assistant coach ahead of next season, per ESPN\u2019s Kendra Andrews<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fowles, a four-time Defensive Player of the Year, is a Basketball Hall of Famer who won two WNBA championships \u2014 and two Finals MVPs \u2014 in 2015 and 2017.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Few rival Fowle\u2019s defensive pedigree; she is fourth all-time in WNBA blocks and retired as the league\u2019s all-time leading rebounder in 2022. Fowles is also an eight-time All-Star, and a three-time First Team All-WNBA player.<\/p>\n

Now, she\u2019ll be a WNBA assistant coach for the first time and is slated to work alongside Portland head coach Alex Sarama<\/a>, a longtime NBA assistant coach who most recently served as the assistant coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

Sylvia Fowles brings WNBA greatness to an expansion team <\/p>\n

Fowles played in the WNBA from 2008 to 2022, with the\u00a0Chicago Sky<\/a>\u00a0for her first six seasons and the\u00a0Minnesota Lynx<\/a>\u00a0for her last seven. She won two WNBA titles with the Lynx (2015 and 2015), and was awarded Finals MVP honors in both championships. In 2017, she was also named league MVP.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, the Portland Fire will benefit from that WNBA experience, especially considering their new head coach isn\u2019t rooted in the WNBA.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0team\u2019s official press release<\/a>, Samara explained he\u2019ll bring an unconventional approach to the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity to build something from the ground up is unique,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the Fire, we\u2019re not just creating a team \u2013 we\u2019re redefining how the game is taught and played, through an approach centered around adaptability and supported by evidence-informed methodologies. We want to create a new standard for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become a trend league-wide for teams to address the fact that some head coaches don\u2019t have a ton of WNBA experience by bringing in WNBA veterans to coach alongside them.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

For example, Phoenix Mercury head coach Nate Tibbets came over to the WNBA from the NBA, but the Mercury also benefit from having former WNBA star Kristi Tolliver as the team\u2019s associate head coach. Newly-appointed New York Liberty head coach Chris DeMarco comes from over a decade spent with the Golden State Warriors, and it won\u2019t be surprising if a former WNBA player is on his bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former WNBA star Sylvia Fowles\u00a0is joining the\u00a0Portland Fire\u00a0as an assistant coach ahead of next season, per ESPN\u2019s Kendra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[100907,49,48,726,2357,8217,25358,71042,736,3457,3461,104252,82,8610,630,47720,28526],"class_list":["post-352460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-assistant-coach","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago-sky","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-head-coach","tag-kendra-andrews","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-portland-fire","tag-sports","tag-sylvia-fowles","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-championships","tag-wnba-player"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352460","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=352460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}