crossroads

A day after general manager Raegan Pebley was fired, the Sparks were in Atlanta and seemingly still focused on trying to reach the playoffs this year.

The suggestion that Pebley’s removal was a sign that the team is performing poorly didn’t sit well with coach Lynne Roberts.

“I don’t think we underachieved last year and this year is still going,” Roberts said in Atlanta on Monday before the team’s loss to the Dream. “For where we want to get, that’s not where we want to be, but we tripled our win total in my first year — that’s not underachieving. We haven’t hit our stride, we’ve been injured all year. Hopefully we get [Kelsey Plum] and Cam [Brink] back. Our system is designed around KP. I’m not close to thinking we are underachieving.”

Pebley and the rest of the Sparks’ organization signaled a clear intention to compete this season, signing veterans Nneka Ogwumike and Erica Wheeler in the offseason, signing Dearica Hamby to a three-year deal and trading for Ariel Atkins.

The Sparks’ Rae Burrell protects the ball under pressure the Chicago Sky’s Natasha Cloud at Crypto.com Arena on July 10.

(Luiza Moraes / Getty Images)

They are still in the playoff race midway through the season, but have the second-worst defensive rating in the WNBA and sit a game below the postseason cutoff line.

They have competed without Plum, their top scorer, for 12 games and former No. 2 overall pick Brink during the past nine contests.

But even with their struggles, culminating in an 82-64 loss to Seattle on July 6, the Sparks responded well with consecutive home wins against Indiana and Chicago. After those games, Roberts seemed to think the team was moving in the right direction, but team owners made a major change.

The Sparks have a decision to make about how hard they want to push the rest of this season as the team flirts with missing the playoffs for a sixth consecutive season. With the trade deadline on Aug. 2, they could make some moves to improve this season or sell off their veteran assets and attempt to rebuild again.

The Sparks haven’t made the playoffs since 2020 and have made some controversial moves while trying to snap out of the slump.

In addition to the questionable trade of 2024 fourth overall pick Rickea Jackson to Chicago for veteran Atkins this offseason, Pebley traded the picks that would become Storm post duo Awa Fam and Dominique Malonga for Plum and Kia Nurse. In her sole season with the Sparks, Nurse averaged 7.6 points per game.

Pebley also traded the No. 8 pick in 2024 (that later was used to draft Alissa Pili) to Chicago for Julie Allemand and Li Yueru, then lost Allemand in the expansion draft. Yueru was sent to Seattle in the Plum trade and is now playing with Dallas. The Sparks’ 2025 first-round draft pick Sarah Ashlee Barker was left unprotected and went to Portland in the expansion draft.

The Sparks waived their top pick in this year’s draft, Ta’Niya Latson, after barely playing, and she has gone on to join Las Vegas. Sania Feagin, a 2025 first-round draft pick, was waived and signed with Portland.

Most of those moves, though, came after the Sparks lost the top spot in the 2025 draft lottery to Dallas, which selected Paige Bueckers with the No. 1 pick. Before the lottery result, it seemed like the Sparks — who went 8-32 in 2024 before that draft — were lining up for a youth movement led by Brink and Bueckers. A lineup of those three, a healthy Feagin, Barker and Allemand would be an entirely different kind of team.

Once that failed, they focused on adding veterans who could win now and have only managed modest improvement.

The Sparks have their next two first-round draft picks and four players still on rookie contracts after this season (Brink, Chance Gray, Kate Martin and Pili). Brink is their lone lottery pick left from their disappointing past six seasons. (Pili was a top-10 pick, but she has struggled to stay on a WNBA roster and just signed a player developmental contract with the Sparks this month.)

Pebley told The Times in an interview on Friday that she was open to making moves to compete at the deadline this year.

Players on the Sparks’ bench celebrate during a win over the Chicago Sky at Crypto.com Arena on July 10.

(Luiza Moraes / Getty Images)

“We are in a space where we are here to win,” she said. “This is a city that wants to win. We have an ownership that wants to win. You see what they’re doing with the Lakers. You see what they’ve done already with the Dodgers. … We have to always continue to invest in the roster. We have a responsibility to always listen and be aware of what’s out there.”

A league source not authorized to discuss trade conversations publicly told The Times that Pebley had been aggressive ahead of the deadline, and now teams are unsure what approach the Sparks will take moving forward.

“I found out when everybody else did,” Roberts said of Pebley’s firing. “It was a surprise. She’s a good friend of mine. I think the tone is set that we need to keep building and get the Sparks back to where they have been. That’s been the tone. Raegan did some great things for our org in that regard and improved a lot of things. That work can’t go undenied. It’s full-steam ahead and I’m focused on what I can do.”

It would be difficult to move some of their heftier contracts, especially since WNBA teams cannot take on more salary than their remaining cap space allows in a trade. Hamby, 32, is signed for two more years for more than $1 million per season. Atkins is also signed for two years at $1 million-plus and is having a career-worst offensive season, shooting 36.4% with 8.7 points per game.

Wheeler, 35, has another year left on her deal, but a $625,000 cap hit for a player who would be a backup point guard on most teams is a tough sell.

Plum and Ogwumike are on expiring deals, and the Sparks’ most valuable roster asset, Rae Burrell, is a restricted free agent, but one of the few young players left on the Sparks’ roster.

The Sparks have a limited $86,000 in cap space, too, so if they decide they want to buy at the deadline, they have to find a way to clear space.

They enter the trade deadline period in a difficult spot as a team in purgatory that just fired its general manager.

Yet what they decide to do in the next month might be the most clearest sign of their ambition and hope for the future.

The war that Donald Trump declared won last month looks rather different from the inside of the Pentagon. The resulting stalemate has drained American military stockpiles, emboldened Iranian commanders, and left the US with far worse options than before the conflict began.

The administration’s triumphalist framing has struck a jarring note among those who have spent careers studying the Iranian military and the limits of American power projection. Declaring victory when the enemy is still standing, still armed, and still controlling the waterway you went to war over is not a strategy. It is a wish dressed up as a press release.

At the heart of the impasse are two demands that Tehran has consistently and categorically rejected. Iran will not surrender what it regards as its sovereign right to develop its uranium program, and it will not yield control of the Strait of Hormuz. Those two positions were Iran’s red lines before the fighting started. They remain Iran’s red lines now. Nothing in between has changed.

What has changed is the arithmetic of munitions. The United States entered this conflict with a military built around expensive, technologically sophisticated weapons systems, precision instruments that take years to design, years more to manufacture, and that have now been expended at a rate the American defense industrial base is poorly positioned to replenish. Iran, by contrast, relies on a dispersed network of robotic small boats, undersea mines, tactical ballistic missiles, and unmanned systems. These weapons are cheap, simple, and easy to produce at scale.

The United States essentially deployed a Ferrari into a demolition derby. The Iranians didn’t need high-end technology; they just needed a relentless volume of cheaper assets to overwhelm the defense.

Trump, for his part, has shown no appetite for nuance. “We have totally obliterated their military capacity, there’s nothing left, believe me, nothing,” he told supporters at a rally in Georgia. Pentagon planners reviewing the same battlefield data have reached a rather different conclusion.

The American strikes produced mixed results. Iran does not maintain a conventional naval fleet or a modern air force in the Western sense. Its control of the strait rests not on destroyers or fighter wings but on a distributed, resilient system of asymmetric capabilities. The Iranian systems that dispersed into the terrain absorbed the strikes and began reconstituting almost immediately. Defense analysts point out that the Iranians have adapted from what they observed, replenished their stocks, and may now be better positioned than when the conflict began.

The strategic picture is further complicated by the political pressures that shaped the original decision to go to war. Analysts describe a decision driven less by tactical opportunity than by commitments made to Israeli leadership and to influential pro-Israel donors whose support was central to Trump’s political coalition. The result was a military campaign calibrated to political timetables rather than operational logic.

READ: Israeli premier expresses concern over US handling of Iran nuclear file in call with Trump: Report

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a member of the Armed Services Committee, called the conduct of the conflict “a case study in how not to use military force.” Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, before his defeat in his primary, was more pointed: “We went in without a declaration of war, without a clear objective, without an exit strategy, and now we’re supposed to celebrate because we used up half our missile inventory and the Iranians are still there.”

The regional picture adds further complexity. Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf monarchies are acutely aware of their own exposure. A major Iranian strike on above-ground oil and desalination plants could critically impede the GCC’s government’s ability to maintain economic prosperity. The GCC states have no appetite for an escalation that leaves their vital water infrastructure in ruins. While they favor the containment of Iran, preventing a regional war is a matter of sheer survival.

The broader strategic damage extends well beyond the Gulf.

The conflict has exposed, with uncomfortable clarity, the brittleness of an American military model that prioritized theoretical sophistication over the practical demands of sustained combat. The long-overlooked vulnerability of the missile supply chain has now emerged as the primary constraint on future American options. Restoring that capacity, according to officials, will require years of industrial retooling.

Washington has come to realize that Iran acutely recognized US vulnerabilities, designing asymmetric systems specifically to deplete America’s most expensive capabilities with its cheapest assets. This is not a temporary setback; it is a structural crisis.

For now, President Trump appears caught between the political cost of acknowledging stalemate and the military risk of a second round of strikes that the Pentagon itself doubts would achieve different results. The operational pause is not a logistical necessity. The forces are forward-deployed and ready. The pause is a search for a rationale, a way to resume the fight that does not require the White House to explain why the first attempt failed.

By most accounts, the search has not yet succeeded.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

SOUTHERN SECTION BASEBALL PLAYOFFS
TUESDAY’S RESULTS
THIRD ROUND

DIVISION 1

Pool A

Norco 9, Ayala 2

Pool D

Corona 6, Corona Santiago 1

Pool C

Cypress 8, Sierra Canyon 0

Pool B

La Mirada 11, Huntington Beach 1

SECOND ROUND

DIVISION 2

Elsinore 6, Santa Margarita 4

Ganesha 5, South Hills 2

Newport Harbor 4, Great Oak 1

Aquinas 5, Gahr 3

Santa Ana Foothill 3, Servite 0

Yucaipa 17, Royal 2

Loyola 7, Chaminade 6

Alemany 9, Westlake 6

DIVISION 3

Mira Costa 6, Redondo Union 3

Dos Pueblos 10, Edison 7

Warren 10, Palos Verdes 1

St. Francis 5, Cajon 2

Agoura 3, Garden Grove Pacifica 0

Fullerton 7, Corona del Mar 6

Millikan 3, Beckman 1

Summit 5, Arcadia 4

DIVISION 4

Saugus 11, San Marino 10

Rio Mesa 4, Claremont 2

Glendora at Katella, Wednesday

Anaheim Canyon 4, Upland 1

Marina 11, La Quinta 4

Grand Terrace 4, Palm Desert 0

Laguna Beach 7, Woodbridge 2

Moorpark 8, Monrovia 6

DIVISION 5

Irvine 3, Citrus Valley 2

Cathedral 2, Long Beach Poly 1

Kaiser 5, Quartz Hill 4

Santa Barbara 12, Paramount 5

Long Beach Wilson 2, Jurupa Hills 1

Temescal Canyon 7, Riverside Prep 6

Culver City 6, St. Bonaventure 2

St. Bernard 4, Bishop Montgomery 0

DIVISION 6

Brentwood 9, Ontario 7

Foothill Tech 4, Canyon Springs 0

Trinity Classical Academy 5, Troy 3

El Rancho 8, Northwood 0

Western Christian 5, Savanna 3

Covina 15, Alhambra 5

Muir at Santa Ana Calvary Chapel, late

Lakewood 6, Crossroads 2

DIVISION 7

Carpinteria 7, New Roads 2

North Torrance 7, Grace 0

Santa Paula 11, Fontana 1

Patriot 3, Victor Valley 2

South El Monte 3, Hemet 2

Golden Valley 6, Jurupa Valley 3

Arroyo 4, Carter 3

Norwalk 4, Garden Grove 1

DIVISION 8

Rancho Alamitos 13, Edgewood 10

Chadwick 26, Pasadena Marshall 23

Wildomar Cornerstone Christian 7, Rio Hondo Prep 3

Oxford Academy 4, Rosemead 3

Duarte 4, Santa Clarita Christian 2

Nuview Bridge 3, Nordhoff 2

Artesia 10, Magnolia 5

Anaheim vs. Schurr at Rio Hondo College

DIVISION 9

Lennox Academy 6, Dunn 4

Crossroads Christian 9, St. Monica Academy 8

Ojai Valley 2, San Bernardino 0

Webb 5, Yucca Valley 3

Rolling Hills Prep 11, Ambassador Christian 3

Riverside Bethel Christian 6, Westminster 4

Temecula Prep 22, Cobalt 1

Garden Grove Santiago 7, St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy 6

FRIDAY’S SCHEDULE
(Games at 3:15 p.m. unless noted)
QUARTERFINALS

DIVISION 1

Corona at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame

Norco at Orange Lutheran

St. John Bosco at La Mirada, Saturday at 11 a.m.

Cypress at Harvard-Westlake

DIVISION 2

Ganesha at Elsinore

Aquinas at Newport Harbor

Foothill at Yucaipa

Loyola at Alemany

DIVISION 3

Mira Costa at Dos Pueblos

St. Francis at Warren

Fullerton at Agoura

Summit at Millikan

DIVISION 4

Saugus at Rio Mesa

Glendora / Katella vs. Anaheim Canyon

Marina at Grand Terrace

Laguna Beach at Moorpark

DIVISION 5

Irvine at Cathedral

Santa Barbara at Kaiser

Temescal Canyon at Long Beach Wilson

Culver City at St. Bernard

DIVISION 6

Foothill Tech at Brentwood

El Rancho at Trinity Classical Academy

Covina at Western Christian

Lakewood vs. Muir /Santa Ana Calvary Chapel

DIVISION 7

Carpinteria at North Torrance

Santa Paula at Patriot

South El Monte at Golden Valley

Norwalk at Arroyo

DIVISION 8

Chadwick at Rancho Alamitos

Oxford Academy at Wildomar Cornerstone Christian

Duarte at Nuview Bridge

Schurr at Artesia

DIVISION 9

Crossroads Christian at Lennox Academy

HajI Valley at Webb

Riverside Bethel Christian at Rolling Hills Prep

Temecula Prep at Garden Grove Santiago

Note: Semifinals in all divisions May 26; Finals in all divisions May 29-30.