September 24, 2024
Los Angeles Sparks fire Curt Miller — Early candidates to replace him
By Cameron Ruby
Curt Miller: 'The team is now positioned for success'
The Los Angeles Sparks fired head coach Curt Miller on Tuesday night, throwing open a job unexpectedly less than a week after the end of the 2024 regular season for a team seemingly on the cusp of exiting its rebuilding phase. The team announced it as a mutual parting of the ways, but multiple sources tell The Next it was the team’s decision.
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Miller’s 25-55 record over two seasons in Los Angeles reflect the nature of the franchise’s state when he arrived. A rebuild was expected, and the team added elite talent this past season, drafting Rickea Jackson and Cameron Brink, acquiring guard talent like Aari McDonald in the offseason, and committing to the growth of players like Rae Burrell.
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Jackson excelled as a rookie, Dearica Hamby won MVP votes as a frontline star, but Brink missed all but 15 games, part of an absurd number of injuries over Miller’s two seasons. Our Lucas Seehafer reported the Sparks missed 314 games due to injuries over the past two seasons, accounting for 20.9% of all injuries in the entire league.
The Sparks’ sole WNBA All-Star this season, Hamby took to Twitter to voice her displeasure with the decision, saying: “I hope there is grace in this process for a proven, amazing coach. Everything shouldn’t fall on his shoulders and there’s so much more that goes into coaching besides wins and losses. (That a lot of you don’t see but you speak on.)” She later added “I am truly thankful for our relationship and I think that showed. You had my back on all levels that some ppl will never see.”
All season, Coach Miller voiced excitement about his team’s “build,” repeatedly noting that he was focusing on the “unintended consequences” of the Sparks’ bad luck, from injuries, to scheduling challenges. Players’ statements reflected his positivity, refusing to let a dismal last-place finish be the only story of their season.
The Sparks will get another lottery pick in 2025, with the expectation that should Los Angeles get the number one pick in this year’s lottery, UConn phenom Paige Bueckers will join Los Angeles. With Miller’s focus on a rebuild, Bueckers would fit right in with the young, energetic talent of the Sparks. One thing the Sparks can’t sacrifice in their next hire is the on-court enthusiasm that Miller is known for. With Sparks fans’ love and flair for the dramatic (they’re Angelenos, after all), the person who fills his role will be all but required to bring the energy needed to not only sustain and grow an extremely talented but young team, but also pick up growing where Miller left off: a tiring and sometimes thankless job.
Earlier in the season, Miller told reporters “This is why I left the team [that] I knew could win 30 games a year. I thrive in building.” He added that the Sparks have seen 17 coaches in 27 years, saying “the stopwatch doesn’t stop. It’s going to tick on me, just as it did before me.”
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Today, he shared “I am proud of the culture created in our locker room and strongly believe the roots have been established for a bright future. The team is now positioned for success, and I wish the players the best heading into the 2025 season.”
WNBA coaching jobs are always at a premium, and a shortlist of potential replacements for Los Angeles should include Minnesota Lynx assistant Katie Smith, Seattle Storm assistant Pokey Chatman, Dallas Wings assistant Brandi Poole, Indiana Fever assistant Karima Christmas-Kelly and if the Wings don’t accurately diagnose their 2024 problems, a call to Dallas to discuss current Wings head coach Latricia Trammell as well.
But for all of Magic Johnson‘s protestations that the Sparks should have been better, sooner, a franchise without a true investment in everything from a practice arena on down is losing an arms race in a league with more players than ever in control of their own fates. That’s not a change a coach can implement.
The economics of hiring WNBA head coaches is, finally, catching up to the college game. But a team like Golden State or Portland will have far more luck with a Godfather offer for someone like current Baylor and former Atlanta Dream head coach Nicki Collen than Los Angeles would.
Now they’ll have another option to choose from: Curt Miller.
Howard Megdal contributed reporting to this story.
Written by Cameron Ruby
Cameron Ruby has been a contributing writer for The Next since April 2023. She is a Bay Area native currently living in Los Angeles.
