Sparks Update: Brink shines, but LA struggles to win

While there are some positive developments for the Los Angeles Sparks, the team still is struggling to get wins.

Five games into the 2024 WNBA season, the Los Angeles Sparks have seen great individual performances and broken attendance records, but the results haven’t been there. They’ve lost four games, only beating the winless Washington Mystics.

Here’s an update on the good, bad and ugly in Los Angeles.

The good

The Sparks’ lottery picks have been playing stupendously. No. 2 pick Cameron Brink finished with a new career high of 21 points against the Dallas Wings on Sunday, and No. 4 pick Rickea Jackson is averaging 11.3 points per game and regularly leads the bench in scoring.

Los Angeles has a lot of work to do to become a contender, but these two rookies are part of a bright future. Watching them play is a joy, and the win-loss column results almost become irrelevant as long as they get heavy minutes so they can grow and develop as fast as possible.

The bad

Los Angeles has a bench problem.

Only Jackson has been consistent, and besides her, it’s slim pickings in terms of who you can rely on to play well for an extended period of time. Sparks head coach Curt Miller has begun to get more liberal with his minutes, doling out extended time to Li Yueru and Zia Cooke in hopes of finding some other positive contributors. However, it’s still a big question mark on who, if anyone, will be able to join Jackson as a consistent part of the bench mob.

Right now, that backup unit is an island, and whenever multiple starters sit, the offense falls off a cliff. In the first game of the season against the Atlanta Dream, Miller rested the starters in the fourth, and it cost them the game. They failed to score for four minutes until Kia Nurse returned to the floor. A similar issue happened against the Indiana Fever when Brink had to sit due to foul trouble. The Fever went on a run, and Los Angeles never got its offense going in the second half.

If the Sparks are only going to win games when their top five players are playing at their absolute best, victories will be hard to come by—and this 40-game season will feel much longer.

The ugly

Can Miller find a winning formula? This team is young, inexperienced and lacks depth. The key is finding eight to nine players who can play at the standard necessary to win games. With only five to six players playing well and one win to show for it, there is work to be done.

Yes, it’s a rebuilding season, and most had the Sparks losing more than winning and likely missing the playoffs. But can they do better than 1-4? Three of their four defeats have been by five or fewer points, so the potential to win is there. However, their margin for error is razor-thin, and Miller has to tweak the rotations to find enough wins to at least stay in the playoff hunt.

For now, if all you care about is the game-by-game results, 2024 looks no different than 2023. It’s still very early, and things can change, but all who see the good in this team’s bones need to temper their expectations. It looks like this season is a part of a marathon towards relevancy, rather than a sprint to a championship run.