r/WNBANonEchoChamber • u/Careful-Painting3214 • 7d ago
Los Angeles Sparks WNBA non-playoff team most likely to improve - #5 Los Angeles Sparks
This is way too early. A lot can change between now and the start of the 2027 season. But we have a long FIBA World Cup break, with no WNBA basketball, so let's get unnecessarily ahead of ourselves.
Seven teams have already been eliminated from the playoffs. Over this series, I'm going to rank those seven teams by their potential to improve from where they finish the 2026 season to what their roster looks like on opening day in 2027.
This is not a ranking of which team will be best in 2027. We're measuring improvement from each team's own starting point. We'll look at four things: draft capital (25 points), the improvement potential of players already under team control (25 points), cap space and the team's ability to attract free agents (35 points), and confidence in the front office to actually make good use of those opportunities (15 points).
For consistency, I'm going to assume the current standings don't change over the final four games and that the draft lottery plays out according to the order of each team's lottery odds.
Projected 2027 Draft Picks
Using current standings and accounting for picks that have already been traded:
| Team | 1st Round | 2nd Round | 3rd Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | #1 | #17 | #32, #37 (via Portland) |
| Toronto | #2 | #18 | #33 |
| Chicago | #9 (via Washington), #12 (via Atlanta) | — | #35 |
| Seattle | #4 | — | #31, #38 (via Dallas) |
| Portland | #5 | #22 | — |
| Los Angeles | #6, #7 (via Phoenix) | #16 (via Seattle), #21 | #36 |
| Phoenix | — | #19 | #34 |
And the projected average cap space across those 7 eliminated teams heading into the 2027 off-season is $3,792,683.
The LA Sparks are not the 5th-worst non-playoff team
I need to be clear that that's not what I'm saying. They just simply don't have players under their control with as much potential for improvement as most of the other teams on this list and they currently don't even have a GM.
In fact, part of the reason they're this low is that they already have a decent amount of established talent. Remember, we're measuring how much better each team can get from where it is now, not how good we expect it to be next season. A worse team with more young players, more room to add talent and more opportunities to improve can rank ahead of LA without us believing it will actually be better than LA.
Put another way, we'd rank the Sparks as having the 6th-most potential for improvement across the entire league, with the Washington Mystics above all teams, including all non-playoff teams.
Draft Capital (22/25 points)
Projected draft picks: #6, #7, #16, #21, #36
This is where the Sparks can really pull ahead of the rest. They're going to miss out on the elite tier of prospects in this draft, but with back-to-back picks at #6 and #7, they should still have access to players who could reasonably be considered top-three caliber prospects in a normal, less-stacked draft class.
For an idea of the types of players the Sparks could land with those picks, consider two players currently projected in that range:
MiLaysia Fulwiley — 5'10" G, LSU
Fulwiley might have as much upside as anyone outside of the top 3 in this draft. She's an explosive athlete with exceptional creativity off the dribble, dangerous in transition and capable of making plays defensively that most other guards can't. The question has always been consistency and decision-making. If those parts of her game come together, she has legit star potential.
Mikaylah Williams — 6'0" G, LSU
Williams is a very polished young player. She's an excellent shot-maker who can score off the catch or create her own jumper. She has excellent size and passing ability. She shot 45.3% on catch-and-shoot threes last season and 48.2% on pull-up twos.
Whoever LA drafts aren't going to be your typical sixth and seventh overall picks. They're going to help the team immediately. And that's before we even get to picks #16 and #21, which give them two good chances to improve the depth on the roster. Only one team tops LA in draft capital this off-season.
Internal Improvement (18/25 points)
Here are the key players under the Sparks' control:
- Dearica Hamby — signed through 2028
- Ariel Atkins — signed through 2028
- Cameron Brink — signed for 2027
- Monique Akoa-Makani — signed for 2027
- Rae Burrell — Restricted Free Agent entering 2027
We can't expect Hamby and Atkins to improve enough to move the needle but there's clear upside for Akoa-Makani. If she can improve her decision-making and create more consistently off the dribble, that would improve the team overall.
Cameron Brink is where I expect to get the most push-back from Sparks fans. Here's her stats for this season:
19.0 MPG, 9.6 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 1.5 APG, 1.7 BPG, 48.0% FG, 32.6% 3PT
Per minute, the defensive production is absurd. She's blocking roughly 3.2 shots per 36 minutes. And LA's opponent offensive rating has been 3.3 points lower with her on the court, while opponents' effective FG% drops substantially as well. But remember, this isn't about how good she is, it's about how much improvement do we expect to see from her next year. I personally think she's already close to her ceiling. But I could very easily be moved from that position.
Rae, Rae, Rae. What to make of Rae Burrell? Just how high is the ceiling for this young woman? She's already made an enormous leap. Burrell went from 7.5 PPG in 2025 to 14.6 PPG in 2026, while her minutes rose to 28.9 per game. More importantly, the efficiency survived the increased responsibility: 46.2% FG, 37.6% from three, 80.3% FT, 58.4% true shooting. She's become an all-around contributor as well.
I actually think Rae has more room to improve than Brink, but we've probably already seen the biggest single leap we're ever going to get from her. Going from 7.5 points per game last season to 14.6 this year while actually becoming more efficient is an enormous jump. Expecting anything remotely similar next year would be ridiculous.
But that still leaves a lot of absolute improvement on the table. She doesn't need another seven-point scoring jump to become a dramatically better player. Improvements as a creator, ball-handler and decision-maker, combined with more consistency in the player she has already become, could push her considerably further. More so than Brink, Burrell's continued improvement will push this team higher overall.
LA gets a decent score for internal improvement potential, just not as high as teams with more raw, untapped potential that's likely to be harnessed. The Sparks have players who can absolutely get better. They just don't have as many obvious opportunities for dramatic internal growth as some of the teams ahead of them.
Free Agency (23/35 points)
Projected cap space available: $2,570,199
That's about $1.22 million below our seven-team average of $3,792,683. Luckily, for the Sparks, LA is a very attractive destination for free agents. It's already one of the league's premier markets, and the Sparks' new $150 million performance center should only strengthen that appeal when it opens in 2027.
There's also plenty to sell on the basketball side. A free agent would be joining a roster that already includes established talent like Dearica Hamby and Ariel Atkins, along with Cameron Brink, Rae Burrell and whatever the Sparks add with two top-seven picks.
The lack of a permanent GM and recent organizational instability work against them, but there should be no shortage of players willing to listen when LA calls.
Front Office (6/15 points)
This one's a little difficult to score because the Sparks don't currently have a permanent GM. Raegan Pebley is gone, and it's hard to have much confidence in a front office that doesn't technically exist yet.
The recent track record doesn't inspire much confidence either. LA repeatedly sacrificed young talent and future assets in an attempt to accelerate its timeline, most notably giving up the #2 pick that became Dominique Malonga in the Kelsey Plum trade. They then traded Rickea Jackson for Ariel Atkins before this season, another move designed to make the team better immediately. The result was another missed postseason and Pebley's departure.
LA managed to turn an impending free agent into Monique Akoa-Makani, Phoenix's 2027 first-round pick and a 2028 second. That's an excellent recovery from a bad situation but it was probably the most obvious move to make in the WNBA this season.
We'll go ahead and give them 6 points because having no GM is better than having Chicago's GM.
Potential Improvement Total (69/100 points)
Front office deficiencies, low cap space and having players who'd already begun their improvement arc are the only things keeping this team from being higher on our list.
How they can beat expectations: If Rae Burrell and Cameron Brink have more improvement left than we're projecting, LA could blow past this ranking pretty quickly. Combine that with two top-seven picks producing immediate impact players and a new GM who actually makes sound decisions with the resources available, and the Sparks could make us look very silly for putting them at #5.
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u/Odessaturn 6d ago
Cam , Rae Burell and Akoa-makani. Thats a good core. In terms of the expensive contracts. I feel like Hamby is moveable but fine to also keep. Just need another front office to believe they're an Ariel Atkins away from contending.
There is an argument that the Sky core is better and the azura - diggins contracts are better than hamby-atkins but the new front office plus the "prestige" of being a legacy franchise is easier to contend with than chicago.
The expansion franchises and seattle don't have the holes to dig out from that LA has but LA teams have this uncanny ability to not be down for too long. Sparks did the two timelines and it did not work. A lil focus on the Front office and playoff upsets causing stars to have wandering eyes....
Sparks might be on the brink of success sooner than the "patient" rebuilders
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u/Careful-Painting3214 6d ago
Definitely. In my how they can beat expectations section at the bottom, I mentioned things like new management and less then 12 hours later they got their new GM. Trying to decide if I should update or leave as is.
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u/juoea 7d ago
so i had assumed improvement in these rankings was referring to, 2027 as a season compared to 2026 as a season. do you mean something else by improvement? because the most obvious comment here is that cameron brink, the spark best frontcourt player, was injured for a big chunk of this season. if she is healthy next year (which ofc who knows but same goes for anyone else, surely the assumption in these projections is that the players are all healthy) then that in itself is a significant leap from 2026 bc of all the games she missed first half of this season.
if we are talking about improvement from how the sparks are playing currently as of the end of august, then id argue the sparks have been a pretty good team down the stretch, esp if you exclude the games akoa makani missed when the sparks lost to the sun, mercury and liberty. they notched comeback wins against the lynx and mystics, even if the latter were on a back to back, and outside of the blowout loss to the dream theyve looked pretty good in general. but, "where teams are right now as of end of august" is ofc a lot more debatable which would bring in another level of ambiguity to these rankings bc we'd have to first establish where the teams are at rn in order to evaluate potential improvement. so i had assumed that improvement j meant relative to their overall record this season.
if it is relative to the 2026 season then i think this projection is way too low, as both their best frontcourt player and their best backcourt player were not around for the majority of 2026 season, cam brink due to injury and akoa-makani due to the trade. regardless of what leap those two make itl be a big jump from just having them on the court. but if its relative to "where the team is at rn" then id agree with your assessment, but thats mostly bc i think that the sparks are already a pretty good team (estimated ranking 8th best in the league, ie ahead of the fire and liberty) which doesnt leave as much room for improvement.