The Sparks went outside the WNBA to fill the most important non-playing job in their building, and it is the most interesting thing that franchise has done in a while. Los Angeles is hiring Ariana Andonian, an executive with the Philadelphia 76ers, as its new general manager. She takes over a team that will miss the playoffs for the sixth straight season.
Say that number out loud, because it does not sound like the Sparks. Six years. This is one of the eight original franchises from 1997, a club that won back to back titles in 2001 and 2002 with Lisa Leslie in the middle and added another in 2016 with Candace Parker. For most of this league's existence, Los Angeles was a destination and a standard. Now it is a rebuild with a Hollywood zip code, and that is a strange thing to type.
What I like about the hire is the direction it came from. Pulling a general manager out of an NBA front office rather than recycling a name from inside the WNBA says ownership wanted a different set of habits in the room: cap structure, scouting infrastructure, the boring back office plumbing that separates the teams who are consistently ready in free agency from the ones who improvise in March. The Sparks have not looked ready in a while.
I want to be straight about what I do not have yet. Her exact title in Philadelphia, the length of the deal, how much authority travels with the job, none of that has landed on my desk. Those details matter more than the headline does. A general manager who owns the roster and the basketball department is a real change. A general manager who reports into a committee is a press release.
The backdrop makes it heavier, too. She steps in while the league itself is changing hands at the top, with the commissioner set to retire at the end of the year. New GM, new league leadership, new everything in Los Angeles.
What I am watching next: the first roster decision she signs her name to. That tells you who is actually running this thing.