The Los Angeles Sparks have been patchwork all season. Two of their best players are hurt. Kelsey Plum and Cameron Brink are both out. And yea, the record is sitting at 10-11. So of course the internet has opinions. Lots of them. Most of them not great.
But Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts isn’t paying attention. And she doesn’t think her players should either, even if she knows they probably are.
Before Monday’s game against the Atlanta Dream, Roberts talked about how she and her staff keep the message simple for the team. She said they remind the players to focus on the people actually in the building, not the ones hiding behind a screen.
“We all have to do that on our own. I’m not online, I don’t look at any of it. I know they do because it’s just the generation. And it’s on them,” Roberts said during her pregame press conference. “We talk about the people that are in the room are the ones you should listen to. The people that are online, the trolls that are awful out there, it’s a choice to read it. And so you got to protect your brain and what you’re taking in, and that’s just on everybody to do that in their own way.”
That’s the kind of message that sounds simple. But for a young team in a league where every game gets picked apart on social media, it probably isn’t easy to actually live by.
The Sparks are riding a two-game win streak heading into a four-game road trip, starting with the Dream. They are currently one game behind the Washington Mystics for the eighth and final playoff spot. That gap is small but the margin for error is basically zero.
Tuesday’s game will be number 22 on the schedule, which means the season is officially halfway done. And here’s something that might surprise you: at this exact point last year, the Sparks were 8-14. Worse than this year. Then they ripped off a 8-1 stretch that got them right back into the playoff conversation. It still wasn’t enough. They missed the postseason by a single game.
Roberts doesn’t see last season as a failure. And she doesn’t think this year is one either, not yet anyway.
“I don’t think we underachieved last year, and this year is still going,” she said. “I think for where we want to get, that’s not where we want to be. But tripling wins from one year to the next in my first year, I don’t think that’s underachieving.”
She pointed out that the team has played exactly one game with a fully healthy roster all season. “Our whole system is designed around KP and her unbelievable talent,” Roberts said. “I’m not even close to thinking that we are underachieving at all.”
If Plum and Brink get back soon, the narrative could shift fast. But for now, Roberts is sticking with the people in the room and ignoring everyone else.
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