[ad_1]
-
Alexa Philippou
-
Mechelle Voepel
Close
ESPN.com- Mechelle Voepel covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball, and other college sports for espnW. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.
The Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday fired head coach Derek Fisher just 12 games into the 2022 WNBA season.
The Sparks, who have won three WNBA championships and are one of three remaining original franchises in the league, opened this summer’s campaign with hopes of returning to the playoffs after missing out last season for the first time in a decade. Instead, they are off to a 5-7 start one-third of the way through their 2022 regular-season schedule, which included nine games on the road so far.
Assistant coach Fred Williams has been named interim head coach for Los Angeles, which doesn’t play again until Saturday’s home game against the Las Vegas Aces.
Before then, we weigh in on Fisher’s coaching legacy in Los Angeles, the timing of his dismissal, how the Sparks move forward and what’s next for the franchise after the second major coaching change — the Indiana Fever dismissed Marianne Stanley in late May — in the WNBA this season.
Why did the Sparks make this move now?
That the Sparks would part ways with Fisher in 2022 wasn’t entirely shocking. Some speculated his fourth year at the helm was do-or-die. With the recent hiring of new president Vanessa Shay to oversee business operations, the storied franchise had already started a fresh chapter in the front office; now it will extend to the basketball level.
That the move happened midseason was a bit more surprising. The Sparks’ 5-7 record was underwhelming for a team that had adopted the motto “time to show” in an…
[ad_2]
Source : espn
