Los Angeles Sparks

Team information

Inaugural season: 1997

Home arena: Crypto.com, Los Angeles, California

Owner: Sparks LA Sports LLC

Team colors: Purple, gold, black, teal, and white

Overview

The Los Angeles Sparks are an American professional basketball team that is part of the Western Conference of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team is based in Los Angeles, California, and was one of the original eight teams of the WNBA when it was founded in 1997. On June 21 of that year, the Sparks faced off against the New York Liberty in the WNBA’s very first regular-season contest.

The Sparks’ home games have been played in one of the country’s largest sports markets. At the time of their founding, they were a counterpart to the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). They have been a fixture in the playoffs and missed out on post-season play only a handful of times in their first quarter-century of play.

History

On April 24, 1996, the NBA Board of Governors announced that a professional women’s basketball league had been approved to begin play during the summer of 1997. A short time later, the first eight teams of the WNBA were announced, with a Los Angeles team being established in the new league’s Western Conference. Each of the original WNBA teams had a counterpart in the NBA, and their names, logos, and color scheme usually reflected that association. However, it is unclear why the Los Angeles WNBA team took the name Sparks, as it has no apparent connection to the Lakers name used by the NBA team.

Many of the league’s first players were part of America’s national team that won the gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games or from the Olympic teams of other countries. The Sparks team that played in the first WNBA game on June 21, 1997, included players representing several countries. Guard Mwadi Mabika from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was on the roster, along with center Zheng Haxia, who was from China. They joined Lisa Leslie, a California-born center, along with rookie guard Tamecka Dixon, Penny Toler, and others on the Sparks roster. Toler scored the league’s first two points, but the Sparks lost the game by a score of 57–67. They finished second in the conference with a final record of 14–14 but failed to make the playoffs.

The Sparks also missed the playoffs in 1998 but fared better in 1999. They finished with a record of 20–12 and advanced as far as the Western Conference final playoff series before losing to the Houston Comets. The Comets were the defending WNBA champions and went on to win the championship again.

Los Angeles improved even more in 2000. They posted a record of 28–4, the best in the league and second best in the young league’s history. Once again, however, they were unable to advance past the conference finals and fell to the Comets.

For the 2001 season, the Sparks moved from their original home court at the Great Western Forum to their new home at the Staples Center. They also hired Michael Cooper as their new head coach. After recording the same record as the previous year, the team went on to better their playoff performance by finally beating the Comets in the conference finals on their way to the championship round. They finished off the Charlotte Sting in two games to record their first WNBA championship.

The Sparks repeated this success in 2002. They finished with a record of 25–7 and swept both playoff opponents before beating the New York Liberty in the finals for a second consecutive championship. One of the season’s highlights came on July 30, 2002, when Leslie became the first WNBA player to record a dunk. A dunk, or slam dunk, occurs when the player leaps in the air and deposits the ball in the net from above the rim.

The next four seasons saw mixed success. The team finished in first place in the conference in 2003 and 2004. Despite this, the team failed in their quest for a third consecutive championship, winning only one game in the final series against Detroit in 2003. In 2004, they could not advance past the conference semifinals and lost to the Sacramento Monarchs one game to two. The Monarchs became a barrier to success for the team over the next several years. They swept the Sparks out of the playoffs in 2005 and kept them from advancing again in 2006.

Before the 2007 season, original owner Jerry Buss announced the team’s sale. Shortly after, Leslie announced that she was pregnant and skipping the upcoming season. The year turned out to be the worst in franchise history to that point. The Sparks finished in last place with a record of 10–24 and missed the playoffs for the first time in almost a decade.

The team’s fortunes began to turn around in 2008. Leslie returned to the roster and the team signed Candace Parker with the number one draft pick. Parker became both the WNBA’s rookie of the year and Most Valuable Player (MVP), the first player to ever accomplish both in a single season. The Sparks finished third in the conference with a record of 20–14 and advanced as far as the conference finals. The results were similar in 2009, where they posted a third-place record of 18–16 and once again fell in the conference finals.

The Sparks continued this pattern—finishing in the top of the conference but failing to advance out of the conference in the playoffs—in five of the next six seasons. Then in 2016, they finished with a record of 26–8 and advanced to the finals. Led by Parker, guard Kristi Toliver, and power forward Nneka Ogwumike, they finished second in the league and earned a double bye into the final round where they beat the Minnesota Lynx 77–76 with a last-second shot by Ogwumike for another championship.

In 2018, the team reached the finals again, this time falling to Minnesota. Although they finished well in the following two seasons, the Sparks failed to reach the finals. During that year, Brian Angler resigned as coach and was replaced by Derek Fisher. In 2021, the Sparks finished sixth and did not qualify for post-season play. Fisher left the Sparks in 2022.

For their twenty-fifth anniversary season, the Sparks changed their logo and court design. Their primary logo featured an updated version of the traditional California palm tree logo rendered in purple, gold, and white. It replaced the previous logo of a teal basketball superimposed with a purple oval with the team name emblazoned in gold outlined with black and a palm tree growing from the upright portion of the “K” in “Sparks.”

Notable players

As one of the league’s original teams, the Sparks have been home to numerous players of note. One of the first was center Lisa Leslie, who was the original holder of numerous WNBA records including rebounds and double-doubles (recording more than ten points in any two of five scoring categories). In 2001, she became the first player in the WNBA to win the regular season, all-star, and post-season Most Valuable Player (MVP) titles in a single season. In 2003, she was the first WNBA player to score a dunk shot. The eight-time all-star, two-time champion, and two-time WNBA defensive player of the year was named one of the top fifteen WNBA players in 2011 and was part of the WNBA 20@20 during the twentieth anniversary season.

Candace Parker, a first-round draft pick and former college standout, scored 34 points and 12 rebounds—a double-double—during her WNBA debut in 2008. That same year, she scored the league’s second and third dunks in back-to-back games. An Olympic gold medalist in 2008, Parker was the first WNBA player to be named Rookie of the Year and the league’s MVP in the same season. She was a six-time all-star and the MVP in the 2013 game.

Penny Toler, best known during her American playing career for scoring the first points in an WNBA game, also netted the league’s first-ever free-throw point. A veteran of international play before joining the WNBA, Toler played with the Sparks from 1997 to 1999. Following her retirement, she became the team’s general manager and a key factor in assembling their first championship season in 2001. She remained the Sparks’ general manager until 2019.

Ogwumike started her career with the Sparks as Rookie of the Year in 2012. In 2016, she was the WNBA’s most valuable player. Her last-second shot helped the team win the championship that same year. In 2021, the six-time all-star was named to the W25 list of top players in the league’s first quarter-century.

Bibliography

Ducharme, Gabby. “A History of the Los Angeles Sparks’ Inaugural Season.” Los Angeles Sparks/Women’s National Basketball Association, sparks.wnba.com/news/a-history-of-the-los-angeles-sparks-inaugural-season/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

Dunn, Lindsay. “Los Angeles Sparks Mark Start of New Era Without Candace Parker.” Sports Net, 5 May 2021, www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/article/los-angeles-sparks-mark-start-new-era-without-candace-parker/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

“Historical Timeline.” Los Angeles Sparks/Women’s National Basketball Association, sparks.wnba.com/historical-timeline/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

“History of the WNBA.” Women’s National Basketball Association, 3 May 2002, www.wnba.com/news/history-of-the-wnba-2002/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

“L.A. Sparks Celebrate 25 Years with New Court Design, Logo.” California News Times, 7 May 2021, californianewstimes.com/l-a-sparks-celebrate-25-years-with-new-court-design-logo-los-angeles-sentinel-los-angeles-sentinel/321878/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

Swanson, Mirjam. “Sparks Hope to Build on Substandard 2021 Season.” Orange County Register, 21 Sept. 2021, www.ocregister.com/2021/09/20/sparks-hope-to-build-on-sub-standard-2021-season/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

“WNBA Names 25 Greatest, Most Influential Players in League History.” National Basketball Association, 5 Sept. 2021, www.nba.com/news/wnba-names-25-greatest-most-influential-players-in-league-history. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.