Season In Review: Los Angeles Sparks

As a part of a WNBA.com offseason series, we’ll be taking a look at the seasons of all 12 teams in the league and touching on some of the top reasons to look forward to their 2016 WNBA campaigns.

The Los Angeles Sparks made the WNBA Playoffs in 2015 – head coach Brian Agler’s first season at the helm – but that over simplifies the team’s success last year.

Agler’s first season actually began on a sour note. Candace Parker elected to sit out the first half of the season to rest, Nneka Ogwumike missed the first three games with a nagging injury and Kristi 

Toliver remained overseas playing for the Slovakian national team missing a handful of games.

As a result of being shorthanded, the Sparks started off the season on a seven-game losing streak, the seventh game coming at the hands of the New York Liberty. Toliver returned that night and poured in 30 points under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden and offered a glimmer of hope for a team that was desperately trying to figure things out.  

Agler told reporters after the game that the Sparks just had to be patient and weather the storm. Bodies would return and slowly but surely, Agler remarked, and the Sparks would be just fine.

Perhaps he’s a sage.

The Sparks won their next two games against the San Antonio Stars and the Tulsa Shock, respectively. Just like that, hope abounded. Another rough string of games followed, but their biggest piece, Parker, returned on July 29.

Parker’s return quickly gained the entire league’s attention. She was putting up near triple-double numbers night in and night out. After the All-Star break, Parker averaged 19.4 points 10.1 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 1.9 steals per game. Parker was named WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week twice and was August’s WNBA Western Conference Player of the Month.

She was the life of the Sparks.

As the season wound down, Agler had his team back in a familiar position competing for playoff position. The Sparks locked down the fourth and final playoff spot in the West and earned a matchup with the No. 1 seed Minnesota Lynx.

In Game 1, Minneosta used a 33-point (and then career playoff high) effort from Maya Moore to narrowly escape with a 67-65 win as the series shifted to Los Angeles. Agler’s team would be forced to defend home court with their backs against the wall.

They made it look rather easy, too.

Parker scored 25 points, pulled down 10 boards and tallied 6 dimes to give the Sparks the 91-81 win and give Agler’s squad life. The stage was set: a third and decisive game for a trip to the conference finals. Candace Parker versus Maya Moore, two former WNBA MVPs battling it out on the ultimate stage.

In the end, it was Moore and the Lynx who moved on with the 91-80 win, thus ending the Sparks’ season.

Reasons To Look Forward To 2016

Candace Parker showed during her 2015 run that she’s still one of the most athletic, dominant players in the league. She’ll be back and so will Ogwumike, who was named an All-Star in 2015 along with teammate Jantel Lavender, who will also presumably be back.

Sprinkle in some potential offseason additions and the Sparks should be in a position to return to the postseason in Agler’s second season in Tinseltown.