{"id":617123,"date":"2026-05-01T11:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/617123\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T11:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:27:12","slug":"la-makes-cameron-brink-contract-decision-ahead-of-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/617123\/","title":{"rendered":"LA makes Cameron Brink contract decision ahead of 2026 season"},"content":{"rendered":"

After trading away Rickea Jackson to the Chicago Sky for Ariel Atkins, the Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> still have one remaining lottery pick from the 2024 WNBA Draft on their roster for now and the foreseeable future. The Sparks exercised their fourth year<\/a> contract option on Cameron Brink<\/a> for the 2027 season on Thursday.<\/p>\n

After the 2027 season, the Sparks will then be able to tender a qualifying offer to Cameron Brink with the potential to sign a longer deal as she will be hitting restricted free agency.<\/p>\n

While the Sparks\u2019 offseason moves signaled a shift from rebuilding with a younger core to being in more of a win-now mode, following the team\u2019s annual media day, it was clear that the organization values Brink quite a bit and sees her as a pillar of their future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts acknowledged that while Brink will begin the season coming off the bench, the plan is for her to play a major role.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve mentioned many times, she played 33 games in two year and it was plagued with peaks and valleys of injuries. She\u2019s healthy and she\u2019s confident and she\u2019s strong. She looks as good as I think she could look,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI look at this as almost like her second season. Her first two years combined was like her rookie
year just with the ups and downs with injuries and stuff, coaching change \u2026 really excited about her and her headspace and where she\u2019s at.\u201d<\/p>\n

This offseason has been a bit different for Brink since she\u2019s joined the Sparks. After suffering a devastating ACL injury that cut her rookie year short, last offseason was all about rehab and getting ramped up to return to the court.<\/p>\n

This time around, she was already healthy and could focus completely on improving her game rather than injury recovery. She spent the offseason playing at Unrivaled, and after that season ended, Sparks general manger Raegen Pebley was impressed that Brink immediately returned to the home market to begin workouts with team staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I love now is that she has been able to quietly build confidence. This offseason has been about basketball for her. It\u2019s not been about her hamstring, quad strength and her mobility, it\u2019s been about basketball. That\u2019s the focus for her,\u201d said Sparks general manager Raegan Pebley during media day.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s just been grinding and just letting herself commit to the work. I\u2019m excited this season for this season for her because I think there\u2019s a lot of that noise that\u2019s been dialed down that wasn\u2019t about just being a basketball player, and now it\u2019s all about that \u2026 it\u2019s great to see Cam come into year three confident and without so much noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brink returned to the Sparks lineup last season after the All-Star break<\/a>. She appeared in a total of 19 games at a little over 12 minutes per game. She averaged 5.1 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.4 assists while shooting 42.7 percent from the field.<\/p>\n

While she showed flashes of the player she was before the injury, and the player the Sparks hope she can be, it was clear that Brink was still trying to find her rhythm and role on the team. Now having been able to put in real offseason work, she\u2019s excited to get the season started.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just felt really good to put that type of work in cause when you\u2019re hurt, when I was rehabbing my knee, all I was doing everyday was just trying to get my knee back. So now I feel like have time to just play,\u201d Brink said during media day. \u201cI\u2019m still super young and I know I\u2019m making mistakes and I may not be living up to my potential yet, but I definitely think I\u2019m on the right path.\u201d<\/p>\n

After trading away Rickea Jackson to the Chicago Sky for Ariel Atkins, the Los Angeles Sparks still have one remaining lottery pick from the 2024 WNBA Draft on their roster for now and the foreseeable future. The Sparks exercised their fourth year contract option on Cameron Brink for the 2027 season on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After trading away Rickea Jackson to the Chicago Sky for Ariel Atkins, the Los Angeles Sparks still have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[5041,3029,581,99,434],"class_list":["post-617123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-cameron-brink","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-reporting","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617123","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=617123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}