{"id":57239,"date":"2025-08-04T08:13:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T08:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/57239\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T08:13:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T08:13:24","slug":"los-angeles-sparks-sign-wnba-player-who-their-head-coach-knows-very-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/57239\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Sparks sign WNBA player who their head coach knows very well"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"LPzkk9\">The Sparks have signed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/wnba\/2025\/7\/12\/24466553\/minnesota-lynx-allisa-pili-waived-chicago-sky-loss\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alissa Pili<\/a> to a 7-Day contract, the team announced on Sunday. Pili, who was the 8th overall pick in 2024, appeared in 36 games across her first two seasons with the Minnesota Lynx, averaging 2.2 points and 1.2 rebounds in 6.1 minutes per game. She was waived on July 12th and has been a free agent ever since. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Los Angeles Sparks have signed forward Alissa Pili to a 7-day contract.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 LA Sparks PR (@LASparksPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LASparksPR\/status\/1952036052535046415?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 3, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"WX406u\">Pili was an elite college player; as a freshman at the University of Southern California, she averaged 16.3 points per game. <\/p>\n<p id=\"mG4QC1\">The Sparks had 11 players on their roster before the signing \u2014 now, they\u2019re at the league\u2019s 12-player limit. In signing Pili, Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts reunited with one of the standout players she coached in Utah.  <\/p>\n<p id=\"XLxqA0\">After Pili was waived, Roberts weighed in on Pili potentially becoming a Spark one day, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HERgamenetwork\/status\/1944506129079533866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1944506129079533866%7Ctwgr%5E3d4a5d9b3cafa6f7e34a832f50d2dab50330b16b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alaskasnewssource.com%2F2025%2F07%2F17%2Fsparks-lynne-roberts-talks-alissa-pili-former-top-10-pick-clears-waivers%2F\" rel=\"nofollow\">per HER Game Network<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p id=\"qvaQgs\">\u201cI love her like a kid of my own,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to do. She\u2019ll end up somewhere and maybe someday I\u2019ll get to coach her again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"vKseDj\">\u201cShe\u2019s a hell of a player. She\u2019ll land on her feet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"aCP8WM\">In her senior season at the University of Utah, Pili was one of the most efficient scorers in the country, averaging 21.4 points per game on 55% shooting, while shooting 40.4% from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n<p id=\"4526cK\">The Sparks have several strong frontcourt players; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/wnba\/2024\/9\/17\/24242926\/wnba-most-improved-player-candidate-dearica-hamby-los-angeles-sparks-curt-miller\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dearica Hamby<\/a> (17.6 points, 8.1 rebounds), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/2018\/4\/10\/17194150\/wnba-draft-2018-azura-stevens-uconn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Azura Stevens<\/a> (14.9 points, 8.5 rebounds), and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/wnba\/2024\/9\/3\/24235286\/rickea-jackson-unrivaled-basketball-league-los-angeles-sparks-rookie\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rickea Jackson<\/a> (13.9 points) lead the way. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=Cameron+Brink+sb+nation&amp;oq=Cameron+Brink+sb+nation&amp;gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgYIARBFGDzSAQgxOTE3ajBqNKgCALACAA&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameron Brink<\/a>, last year\u2019s No. 2 overall pick, is also back in the lineup after being sidelined for over a year due to an ACL tear. <\/p>\n<p id=\"t1WtfV\">Pili will have to battle for frontcourt minutes, but will have an opportunity to play for a coach who is intimately familiar with what she brings to the table. <\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sparks have signed Alissa Pili to a 7-Day contract, the team announced on Sunday. Pili, who was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[1699,22727,11986,10529,424,18289,43161,22726,15553,11821,7241,23629,99,6595,659,16085,11985,434,4679,1700,1765],"class_list":["post-57239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-all-womens-sports","tag-angeles","tag-coach","tag-com","tag-front-page","tag-head","tag-knows","tag-los","tag-player","tag-sbnation","tag-sign","tag-sparks","tag-sports","tag-their","tag-very","tag-well","tag-who","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-news","tag-wnba-content","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}