How Roberts' player-development skills will benefit young Los Angeles Sparks

For the second time in a week, a women’s college basketball coach has left a team in season to move to the WNBA, as the Los Angeles Sparks named Lynne Roberts as their new head coach on Tuesday night. Roberts spent the past nine seasons at Utah and was Pac-12 coach of the year in 2023.

Earlier Tuesday, new Atlanta Dream coach Karl Smesko met with the media for the first time after taking over on Nov. 13. Smesko had just started his 23rd season at Florida Gulf Coast when he left for the Dream.

Do the hirings signal a new trend in the WNBA? Since the WNBA launched in 1997, the league hasn’t been much of a draw for college head coaches — especially established veterans such as Roberts, 49, and Smesko, 54 — because the college game has been considered more stable and lucrative.

But with the drastic changes in college sports in recent years — the impact of NIL opportunities and the one-time transfer exemption has made recruiting an even more complicated and time-consuming job — many in and around the WNBA have speculated that the league might appeal more now to college coaches.

Smesko said in his news conference that he has long enjoyed watching the WNBA. He said he wants the Dream to have a “fun and exciting style of play.”

Roberts will have her introductory news conference on Thursday, but she is known for her up-tempo offense too.

Three WNBA coaching spots remain open — Connecticut, Dallas and Washington — plus for the 2026 expansion franchises in Portland and Toronto.

Will we see any other college coaches make the move to the pro game?

“There’s no better time to join the W than right now,” Smesko said Tuesday. “This is the most exciting time for the league.”

We look at how Roberts’ move affects the Sparks and how she will build out her staff.

Why does Roberts make sense for the Sparks?

Pelton: Like Smesko, Roberts earned a reputation in the NCAA for building high-powered offenses that relied heavily on strong floor spacing.

Utah has ranked in the top 10 in HerHoopStats.com offensive rating each of the past three seasons, including third in 2022-23. The Utes were seventh in Division I in 3-point attempts per game last season, five spots behind Florida Gulf Coast.

Much of Utah’s success was thanks to player development. Minnesota Lynx forward Alissa Pili more than doubled her scoring from her last season at USC (7.8 points per game, down from 16.3 PPG as a freshman) to 20.7 PPG in her first season at Utah, emerging as a 40%-plus 3-point shooter en route to being a WNBA first-round pick.

Pili, ranked No. 42 in the ESPN HoopGurlz 100 when she signed with the Trojans, was the highest-rated recruit on the Utes’ rosters as they went 33-17 in Pac-12 play over the past three seasons.

Utah’s Gianna Kneepkens, unranked as a prospect, is another success story who figures to be on the WNBA’s radar.

The Sparks will need that kind of skill development with a young roster. Los Angeles landed the No. 2 pick in Sunday’s WNBA draft lottery to go with a pair of 2024 lottery picks, Cameron Brink (No. 2) and All-Rookie team pick Rickea Jackson (No. 4). Those players will form the core of the Sparks moving forward. Despite the youth, there’s urgency for Los Angeles to make an immediate jump.

The Sparks owe their unprotected 2026 first-round pick to the Seattle Storm from last offseason’s trade to get the pick that became Jackson.

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How will Roberts and Smesko put together their staffs?

Voepel: Smesko said Tuesday he will look to get some assistants who have previous WNBA experience, and it’s likely that Roberts will do the same. Dealing with pro players is different than with college students: Coaches can’t micromanage pros. They have to build adult relationships of mutual respect, not teacher-pupil. The most successful pro coaches are still clearly in charge, but they listen to what their players have to say about strategy. The coaches recognize that veterans, especially, have valuable knowledge to share.

Roberts and Smesko know basketball X’s and O’s, but they will have a lot to catch up with as compared to their counterparts who have spent time in the WNBA. The two newcomers will come to realize, for instance, that sometimes the best thing to do for a pro team is getting the players rest — even if that means going light on practice.

One big plus for the new coaches is that they’re coming into a league that established charter flight travel this past season. Players and coaches have talked about how much impact that has made in cutting down fatigue.

Roberts is a Northern California native who spent the first 13 years of her head-coaching career at California schools Chico State and Pacific before going to Utah. She has crossed coaching paths for many years with Sparks general manager Raegan Pebley, a former WNBA player who coached in the college ranks from 1997 to 2023. So, Roberts should have an immediate comfort level with Pebley, which will help her transition to the WNBA.

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What does it mean that another sitting Division I head coach made the jump to the WNBA?

Pelton: Consider this a sign of the evolving relationship between the NCAA and the WNBA. As recently as 2021, a WNBA head coach (Nicki Collen) left her team on the eve of the season to go to the Big 12. Now, that change is playing out in reverse, with Roberts leaving a team that reached the Sweet 16 two years ago and now is off to a 3-1 start this season.

The Utah job — now in the hands of Gavin Petersen, who was Roberts’ associate head coach — isn’t as appealing as the one Collen took (replacing Kim Mulkey at Baylor). But as compared to Smesko leaving the Atlantic Sun for the WNBA, Roberts’ move is a more resounding indicator that pro salaries are now competitive with a higher tier of Division I women’s basketball salaries.

It remains to be seen how successful Roberts and Smesko will prove in the WNBA, but expanding the size of the coaching pool beyond the traditional groups of former WNBA head coaches and assistants from the WNBA and NBA is surely a good development for the league.

Voepel: Kevin’s point about the talent pool is well-taken. The NBA in the past decade has gradually opened its doors to women assistant coaches. That league hasn’t had a woman as a head coach yet, but it could happen.

In another era, someone such as former WNBA player Lindsey Harding probably wouldn’t have gotten an opportunity in the NBA. Now, she’s an assistant for the Los Angeles Lakers. She is positioned to either stay in the NBA or go to the WNBA, as longtime San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon did with the Las Vegas Aces.

What it all means is that the NBA now is looking to benefit from top coaching talent that previously would have stayed in the women’s game. Thus, the WNBA has to keep expanding its coaching options and must pay competitive salaries.