PORTLAND, Ore. โ The Portland Fire knew they wanted Bridget Carleton from the start. The Fire’s front office “zoomed in” on the former Minnesota Lynx rotation player early in the process, general manager Vanja ฤernivec told reporters following their expansion draft this April.
“What we wanted was, from the roster, as I mentioned, our strategy was … to identify the one unrestricted free agent that we really want to get our hands on,” ฤernivec said. But there was a little more to it than that โ the Fire also had to predict and navigate the picks of the second 2026 expansion team, the Toronto Tempo.
“It was kind of obvious that we do not want to have Toronto hold our destiny in their hands,” she added, “and that built our strategy going forward. So Bridget was an automatic No. 1.”
The team identified nearly unlimited potential in Carleton that they knew they could nurture. “Everybody loves to play with Bridget,” ฤernivec added, “and to build around her … I think she did an amazing job in Minnesota, and if you take her out of that environment and start building the team around her, we think she can be an All-Star player.”
ฤernivec’s premonition was right on target: Carleton was part of this year’s 3-point contest at WNBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago. But the steps to getting there predate Chicago, predate Portland, and even predate Minnesota.
Ontario to Iowa
Carleton grew up in Ontario, where she played for Canada Basketball and competed on the U16, U17, U18 and U19 teams (she was captain of the U19 team during her final year competing at the junior level).
She headed to the United States for college. Carleton made her debut with the Iowa State Cyclones and started in 25 of the 27 games she played during her freshman year. She averaged 12.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game that season, one of the strongest freshman seasons on the books.
The intervening years saw more of the same: impressive stats and awards. Carleton started all 35 games for the first time her junior year, a feat she repeated during the 2018-2019 season before she was drafted into the WNBA. During her senior year, Carleton averaged 21.7 points, 8.6 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.2 blocks โย then the single-best season of any player in the program’s history.
Carleton was brought to Iowa State to make the team better and to prove she could shine, a narrative that would follow her throughout her career.
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Making the leap to the WNBA
Before she made the move to Portland, many WNBA fans most strongly associated Carleton with the Minnesota Lynx, the team she played for seven seasons. But she was drafted by the Connecticut Sun as the No. 21 pick in 2019 and made the team’s opening day roster โ something that’s still a challenge for rookies, but was even more difficult only a few years ago.
Carleton was cut by the Sun after four games, and that’s when Cheryl Reeve and the Lynx came calling. She initially signed a seven-day contract with the team in August 2019, and then a remainder-of-season deal once that first contract was up.
It’s fair to say that some of the qualities the Fire admire about Carleton, including her ability to remain true to herself but also doggedly prove her skills to fight for a spot, were on display in Minnesota. Unrivaled’s executive vice president and general manager Clare Duwelius, who was then working as assistant GM to the Lynx, frequently observed Carleton during that time.
“I think she was trying to kind of plant her flag, and what she was going to be, and what kind of player she could be in the WNBA,” Duwelius told The IX Sports. “You know, Cheryl and I both really, really appreciated elements of her game. She just was always going to make the smart play โ it wasn’t [always] going to be anything that blew you away, but there’s so much value in just making the simple play.”
The conversion from a seven-day contract to rest-of-season was an easy one because of exactly that style of play. “We always talked about [how] she came in on that seven-day contract, and in the first game just made a simple corner pass or an easy three [and] that was like such a moment of relief for us,” Duwelius added. “It was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s so much value in just making the easy play,’ โ which Bridget will always do.”
The team’s next move was clear. Duwelius said, “Obviously we brought her back for the following season, and the rest was history.”
The 2020 season was notoriously played in the so-called “Wubble” (WNBA Bubble) during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Carleton’s teammate, Sylvia Fowles, was injured and missed several games. But that didn’t stop her from showing up as a kind of player-coach for her team, and that’s something Carleton immediately benefited from.
“We were just all together all of the time, and it was unique, too, because Syl also was a little bit in a mentor-slash-coaching role because she was injured for the whole season,” Duwelis said. “And she easily could have packed her bags, gotten out of the bubble, went home, but she was so committed to the team, and serving as that leader for that team in particular.”
Carleton and Fowles were able to connect in a unique way. “BC was kind of still on her rise, and I just think that that connection in particular, I’ve been able to kind of observe for a while in different kinds of ways,” Duwelius said. “And we all know Syl; she’s salt of the earth, one of the best human beings I quite literally have ever met in my life. And honestly, BC isn’t far behind. You know, they’re both kind of cut from the same cloth.”
The two developed a “really beautiful pairing” โ something that would eventually serve them both again.
Carleton remembers things similarly to what Duwelius shared. “Obviously, having [Fowles] as a vet my rookie year, and actually when we were in the bubble my second year … her injury was the reason I got thrust into the starting lineup and kind of solidified my spot on the roster,” she told The IX Sports.
Far from being jealous, Fowles was Team Carleton. “She was like my No. 1 fan. She was just โ it’s been so cool to have her in my corner, not only as a teammate, a friend, and now obviously a coach,” she continued. “The light she brought as a teammate and into the locker room every day โ she brings to the court for us.”
Portland comes calling
Being drafted by the Fire was a pretty organic extension of Carleton’s eclectic career.
“I mean, I’ve been in so many different roles throughout my career,” she said during a Fire practice in August. “As a professional, being the 12th man, trying to make a roster, making a roster, not playing, to being a role player, to starting on a really good team, and I’ve gone overseas every year to continue to get better, and that’s always been my goal.”
She doesn’t stress about how others see her. “I’m not worried about proving people wrong or being someone I’m not,” Carleton continued. “I know the Fire brought me here, Vanja and Alex brought me here, because of who I have been as a player, and they saw something even more in me that I could do.”
Coming in as the team’s first-ever draft pick automatically assigned a lot of leadership responsibility to Carleton, something she’s embraced from the beginning. “I was excited,” she told reporters in May. “I mean, they picked me first. I wanted to go somewhere where they wanted me, and Portland showed how much they wanted me here.”
When asked what it means to be the face of a franchise, Carleton didn’t hold back. “I’m ready for it. I think I was ready in this free agency to take the next step in my career,” she explained.
“I think Alex and the staff here, they believe in me and they know what I can do. They’ve watched me play in all the roles I’ve kind of been in internationally and in the WNBA. So, they see that in me, and I’m really excited to play for him,” she added.
Playing for Sarama has included her All-Star debut in July. Carleton won the first round of the 3-point contest with 39 points and ultimately finished in second place behind the Dallas Wings’ Azzi Fudd. She didn’t win, but ฤernivec’s prophecy still came true.
Like a lot of players in the league, Carleton has had the opportunity to be coached by more than one coach. In her case, she’s been coached by Cheryl Reeve, the league’s winningest coach, and Sarama, who is still in his first year.
“Every coach is so different, just in their approach. Obviously, I’ve only had two coaches essentially,” Carleton said when asked how the two are similar and how they differ. Like Sarama, Reeve is also analytics-minded and into the numbers of a play, of a team, of an athlete.
“They’re similar in the way they think about the game, how they analyze the game, their analytics โ they’re numbers-based,” she said. “‘We do this because the numbers say we need to do this to be successful’. But again, obviously everyone knows how Alex’s approach to CLA, and that training is very unique and transformative.
Reeve has her own style. “Cheryl was more like traditional training and practice. So that’s been different, but I think that would have been different no matter who my last coach was,” she said. “It’s been cool to have the different dynamics, and both are good.”
Adaptability is a huge part of Sarama’s coaching method, and something the entire Fire has become more adept at. For example, the team has been known to practice with as many as five different balls โ the standard-issue WNBA ball, an NBA ball, the 3×3 ball, a ball that’s slippery and a ball that’s smaller than the rest. They’ve also been known to practice in their socks, and Sarama is often eager to encourage players to completely deconstruct the skills they are best at.
For example, anyone who has seen Carleton play this season knows she has a money shot that she can just always hit: typically, she’s in the center of the court right outside the 3-point line when she gets the ball, spins, and pulls up to bank the shot. When asked when and where the shot developed, Carleton laughed and said it was likely in college.
“I haven’t been able to do it that much at the professional level, just because [of] opportunity and [getting] balls in my hands a little bit more,” she said. “That’s one of my moves that I know I can always go to โ I can always get it off if I need to get it off.”
That’s exactly the kind of shot Sarama wants her to take and wants her to build on โ or even totally remove from her arsenal.
“It’s really funny,” he told reporters at the same practice. The shot “actually came up today, where we spoke about controlling [the shot] and taking it away โ not because it’s not really good, but we don’t want her to go to that in because that’s her sweet spot.
“You know, it’s like when she gets that ball in the paint area, where she’s getting to the low block or the elbow โ she’s actually pretty efficient there, but now we want her to find some other solutions too,” Sarama continued.
Changing things up is all part of the plan to encourage Carleton โ and the rest of the Fire โ to be brave enough to pivot. “When BC has a good match shot, we really want her to be more deceptive with how she’s manipulating the ball,” he explained. That includes changing speed, for example.
Sarama said that Carleton’s upcoming debut season in Unrivaled will transform her game, too. “We want to use that as an experience for her to work on things that we’re going to transfer back to the regular season next year with us,” he said.
Next on deck: Unrivaled
Carleton signed with 3×3 league Unrivaled in June. Working with WNBA coaches is part of the Unrivaled experience, Duwelius explained to The IX Sports.
“There’s, in a lot of instances, just a natural kind of conduit from a lot of the coaches that we have employed at Unrivaled,” she explained. “They have the obvious connection to their W franchises, and what we like to do at Unrivaled is welcome cross-collaboration. So you can play on the Phantom, but if your W coach is the coach of the Breeze, there’s that natural [connection]. I mean, we’re all under one roof, so just proximity-wise, it’s really easy to accomplish what goals players and coaches alike have.”
Unrivaled is “fully open and welcoming” of a dynamic that includes a two-way street between their coaches and those from the WNBA. “I know that Sarama is very keen on player development and seeing his players grow, and really new teaching techniques,” she added. “We, of course, will open the door and welcome any and all of what he is envisioning for Bridget, as long as that’s what she wants to.”
Bringing Carleton to Unrivaled was a decision years in the making, and Duwelius knew she was part of the league’s vision from the beginning. “She has been someone that I have been trying to have join us since I arrived. Obviously, we have history for a number of years. I’ve known Bridget for a long, long time. Even when she was at Iowa State, she’s just kind of the prototype for the player that we like to have,” she explained.
“Obviously, she’s just tough-nosed, gritty, going to do whatever it takes, and I think that’s a really special quality for our players to have because there’s no secret that the players get challenged in a different kind of way,” she continued. “Playing 3-on-3 defensively, you’re kind of left on an island, and you’re really challenged in a different way to guard the ball one-on-one, and then from an offensive standpoint, it’s been noted throughout the season that she’s taken a step forward from a confidence standpoint, and I think that will be really showcased this year.”
Carleton is “kind of the prototype from a character standpoint,” Duwelius also said. She then invoked some of the Wubble language. “It’s very intimate, right? We’re all under one roof, and all the teams are right there,” she said. “And having really great people is a non-negotiable. So I thought she’d be a great fit from Season 1, but I’m happy that we’re finally together here, going into Season 3.”
The 2026 WNBA season hasn’t yet concluded โ in fact, there are still plenty of games to be played โ but Carleton has already proved drafting her was one of the best decisions the Fire made. She ranks fifth in the league in 3-pointers with 90; she’s also eighth in steals.
More than anything, her confidence in herself is through the roof. Playing for the Fire has given her the opportunity to grow as a leader. “When you’re a role player, you’re … more reserved. It’s easy to just be in the shadows, or not use your voice, because there are other people doing that.”
“Now people look to me to use my voice, and so stepping into those moments… I’m really proud of my ability to do that,” she added. “That’s just like credit to my teammates and that coaching staff for getting me that confidence.”
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