In 2016, when Curt Miller took over as the coach of the Sun, he inherited stewardship of a WNBA franchise that had missed three consecutive postseasons. On Friday, the Sparks announced Miller as their next coach, hoping for a similar turnaround, with the 54-year-old leaving Connecticut having made six consecutive playoff appearances and the Finals in two of its last four campaigns.
That feat, Miller said after a practice midway through his team’s 2022 Finals matchup with Las Vegas, was what he was most proud of throughout his Connecticut tenure: “of this franchise’s sustained success, and we’re doing it without No. 1 draft picks,” he said. “We’re doing it by developing players.”
Miller will now have another development project in front of him, moving from one coast—the Sun’s Mohegan Sun Arena is only around a 25-minute drive to the shores of New London—to another. And as he does so, Miller, who said during the Finals he was the longest-tenured member of the Sun organization across all departments, provides a Sparks franchise that had been shrouded by numerous questions with a much-needed stabilizing force.
Miller developed a reputation as a builder with the Sun, serving in dual roles as both the franchise’s coach and general manager in his final six years with the team. There, he said, Connecticut’s roster became “full of stories of unintended consequences,” with different injuries and absences revealing what future iterations of its roster would look like and what style of play it would trot out on the court.
Under Miller, forward Alyssa Thomas developed into one of the league’s premier forwards, becoming a versatile force that was seemingly making WNBA history on a nightly basis last fall. Forward Jonquel Jones went from averaging 14.1 minutes per game as a rookie to a Most Improved Player award winner in her second season, a Sixth Person of the Year winner in her third and a league MVP in 2021. Center Brionna Jones followed a similar path to Jonquel, making the All-Star Game in each of the past two years, taking home Most Improved and Sixth Person honors. She is an unrestricted free agent this offseason, telling Sports Illustrated after Game 4 of the Finals she hadn’t thought about her future yet. She could make for another splash signing if Miller’s new team elects to go that route.
Sun president Jen Rizzotti said in a statement Friday that in recent weeks she “wanted to be supportive of the fact that [Miller] could be ready for a change.” And for what it’s worth, it did seem some kind of change—whether it was coach-related or roster-related—could be coming, after the Sun came up short to Las Vegas. Mid-series, Miller acknowledged the fragility of title windows, saying, “We know that each and every year your team rarely looks exactly the same.” Against the Sky a round earlier, a clip aired on ESPN went viral of Miller purporting to say in a midgame huddle with players that he was “gonna get fired because we can’t make a layup.” (Miller, and multiple players, clarified to SI that while Miller never said that in front of his players, the audio was in fact from a midgame coaches huddle instead.) Still, despite his not saying it in front of his players, the sentiment is indicative of the pressures he faced to succeed last season.
With the Sparks, what role Miller has in bringing in the players that will eventually determine how well he performs remains unclear. There was no mention of his also serving as Los Angeles’s general manager in the team’s official release, and the Los Angeles Times’ Thuc Nhi Nguyen reported the team still plans on hiring a GM later this offseason. But perhaps Miller will still have final say on personnel decisions, considering he is being brought in first. According to HerHoopsStats.com, the Sparks have the second-most cap space in the league, and Miller told Southern California News Group’s Mirjam Swanson “a big appeal of the job is the building process.”
There is certainly much work to do. Los Angeles finished last season 10th in the WNBA, firing coach and general manager Derek Fisher following a subpar 5–7 start. Liz Cambage, the team’s prized offseason signing last winter, flopped as she left the team July 26, having averaged only 23.4 minutes and 13 points per contest. The Sparks would win only once more the rest of the season, with Miller’s Sun officially eliminating them from contention Aug. 11.
Sparks forwards Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike are both unrestricted free agents but have familiarity with their new coach—he coached Chiney in 2016 while she was with the Sun and Nneka in ’15 while he was an assistant with the Sparks. So, too, does veteran guard Kristi Toliver, another unrestricted free agent, who was also on the ’15 Los Angeles team. Other key pieces, like guards Brittney Sykes and Jordin Canada, also could sign elsewhere. Los Angeles doesn’t have its first-round pick this year, after trading it to Atlanta in a deal that brought back guard Chennedy Carter.
Eric Holoman, the Sparks’ managing partner, noted in a statement announcing Miller’s hiring that Miller’s Connecticut teams played with an “intensity and attention to detail our players will embrace, and a passion our fans will appreciate.” He touted Miller’s ability to “develop several All-WNBA and MVP-level” players, and past success—he is a two-time Coach of the Year and is the fifth-winningest coach in WNBA history by winning percentage (61.9%). Holoman, undoubtedly, hopes Miller will fare similarly with a Sparks team that has missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time since the first two years of the WNBA.
After Connecticut’s Game 3 Finals win over the Aces, Miller spoke to reporters wearing a green hat printed with the word “BELIEF.” He told SI he wore it after losing a bet that he had with members of coaching staff—the gist being that if they pushed the series to a fourth game he would wear it to address the media.
It’s unclear where Miller is at in his move west and what ever happened to that particular item. But it would probably serve him well in sunny Los Angeles. It could provide the Sparks with a small reminder of what the future could hold, a sense of belief with a new coach locked in.
