The Sparks’ ownership made a major shift in direction on Sunday, firing general manager Raegan Pebley amid a lackluster season that has the team just below the WNBA playoff cutoff line and far from the title-contending form Pebley promised.
Assistant general managers Zach Knowlton and Nate Nielsen will split interim GM duties, the team announced.
“We are grateful to Raegan for her leadership and commitment to the Los Angeles Sparks and women’s basketball,” Sparks managing partner and governor Eric Holoman said in a statement. “Her work on the Sparks roster and player experience will have a lasting positive impact on our organization. We sincerely thank her for all she has invested in the Sparks and wish her success in her next chapter.”
The Sparks (10-11) sit in ninth place in the WNBA standings, one spot removed from the last potential playoff spot. The team is coming off back-to-back wins over the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever, but that followed a three-game losing streak.
“There is a united vision from ownership to leadership, and then I think it’s discipline,” Pebley told The Times in an interview before Friday’s game. “I think you can make a lot of mistakes if you use recency bias, and if you become really reactionary. We want to respond to the things that we’re seeing that we want to grow in, but we don’t want to just demonstrate a lack of discipline and quickly react that way.”
The Sparks have won three WNBA titles, the most recent in 2016, but the franchise has not made the playoffs since 2020.
Leading scorer Kelsey Plum has missed two long stretches with injuries, but the biggest headache for the team for much of the season has been its poor defense.
Under Pebley’s direction, the Sparks hired coach Lynne Roberts and rebuilt a roster around Plum and Nneka Ogwumike. Roberts had been the head coach at the University of Utah and had no prior WNBA experience as a coach at the time of her hire. Despite the team’s struggles, Pebley gave Roberts a vote of confidence on Friday.
Sparks general manager Raegan Pebley, left, speaks during a news conference introducing new guard Kelsey Plum, center. They are joined by Sparks coach Lynne Roberts.
(Ringo Chiu/For The Los Angeles Times)
“She has been all we were looking for and more,” Pebley said. “We wanted someone who had that emotional regulation, she stays neutral. I think the days of a tyrant head coach are over.”
The Sparks’ offseason personnel moves included trading popular first-round draft pick Rickea Jackson for a roster that was older but one Pebley said could better position the team for a WNBA title run.
”Loved having her here … she’ll be successful wherever she goes,” Pebley said of Jackson shortly after the trade. “But we’re focused on winning a championship and finding that fit and balance and getting all those pieces locked in with each other.”
In addition to trading Jackson, some of Pebley’s moves have included trading the pick that became Dominique Malonga for Kelsey Plum and the pick that would become Awa Fam for Kia Nurse.
Instead, the Sparks have struggled with consistency, at times showing potential with a win at Las Vegas, a dramatic come-from-behind win against New York on the league’s 30th anniversary and a defensive shutdown of Fever guard Caitlin Clark this week.
With the trade deadline less than a month away, Pebley had expressed excitement about the return of Plum and injured Cameron Brink.
“Knowing those two are going to be added into a group that’s continued to be able to get better in their absence,” she said, “I think we have a right to be optimistic.”
The franchise found itself in the middle of some controversy when reports surfaced the Sparks were among more than half the players in the league who did not complete their WNBA All-Star starter ballots. The ballots were emailed to players, but they reportedly did not see them in time to vote. Plum was not named a starter despite leading the WNBA in scoring at the time votes were cast, although it’s unclear whether full player participation would have altered a decision calculated by combining player, fan and media votes.
“That’s something we take responsibility for as an organization, and we’ll have a more robust process going forward,” the Sparks said in a statement.
Soon afterward, the Sparks’ director of communications left the team.
The Sparks hired Pebley in January 2024 to help the former WNBA champions break out of their playoff drought.
A third-round pick by the Utah Starzz in the WNBA’s inaugural 1997 draft, Pebley was the head coach at Utah State (2005 to 2012) and Fresno State (2012 to 2014) before a nine-year stint at Texas Christian, where she led the Horned Frogs to four WNIT appearances in her first five years before stepping down in 2023 as TCU finished 8-23. She was a TV analyst for the Dallas Wings from 2016 to 2023.