PORTLAND, Ore. โ The Portland Fire are back, and no one is more aware of that than the players and coaches themselves. The team has a lot of history to live up to, but also a chance to rewrite it and create its own story.
The last time Portland was home to a WNBA team was in 2002, when the original Fire played their final season. The team would fold soon after, when then-chairman Paul Allen opted against buying the team, and no one else stepped up to the plate.
The rebirth of the Fire came about after commissioner Cathy Engelbert visited the city in 2023, poised to award an expansion team to tech billionaire Kirk Brown. But Brown ended up backing out of the proposition due to a branding disagreement with Engelbert; this left the team without the required $50 million to buy an expansion team (a number that has since shot up).
In September 2024, the Blathal siblings โ Lisa and Alex of RAJ Sports โ committed to the team. Thus began the process that brought the Fire back to Portland, underlined by a unique style of operations.
The Fire’s head coach, Alex Sarama, is 30 years old, making him the youngest head coach in the league. His experience is compelling and varied; he’s worked for NBA Europe in Madrid, Paris Basketball, the Portland Trail Blazers’ G League affiliate, the Rip City Remix and, most recently, as an assistant coach and head of player development for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
He’s also developed his own style of coaching and playing, the constraints-led approach (CLA) that is detailed in his 2024 book, “Transforming Basketball.” Sarama is bringing that system to the WNBA โ so now Portland has a new team, a new culture, a new coach and a new system.
The uncertainty surrounding the Fire’s rebirth has resulted in a “surreal” experience finally seeing the team come together, Sarama admitted Sunday, the first day of the team’s inaugural training camp.
“To think, three weeks ago we didn’t even have a team, and now we’re here and we’re in full flow. … [I’m] just really grateful for the whole staff, the work we put in these last few months, to prepare for this,” he said.
Everything about the Portland Fire is new
Appropriately, the team was buzzing the first day of training camp this week. Megan Gustafson, who signed a two-year deal with the team after being selected in the 2026 expansion draft, told reporters Sunday afternoon that the energy was good, especially for a team that has a lot to learn about itself.
Gustafson, who won a championship with the Las Vegas Aces in 2025 and also has plenty of international experience, thought everyone displayed top-tier effort, explaining, “That’s how it should be every day.”
At 29, Gustafson is one of the oldest players on the young team. She’s been pushed into a mentor role, something she readily accepts as she steps into a new stage of her career.
“I’ve always tried to do that for the young players, no matter what,” she said. “… It’s a new adventure, and it’s a new system, a new coach, and I think there’s a lot of opportunities.”
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Haley Jones, who also joined the team via the expansion draft, noted that she’s also found herself in a mentor role despite being just 24 years old. The Fire is her fourth team in as many seasons, an experience that’s afforded her plenty of knowledge about the WNBA.
“I have to be a role model and think about those things,” she explained. “But I think it’s really exciting to really show this community what the WNBA is about, and they’ve been waiting for it, and they’re hungry for it, and we can tell.”
Jones believes her varied experiences in the league have showcased her resilience, and allowed her to grow as a person and a player while making an impact.
Maya Caldwell, who joined the team from the Atlanta Dream, admitted her roles in Atlanta and Portland are different, but being on an expansion team gives her “a greater opportunity to showcase my talents on an even bigger platform,” even though it’s taken some time to adjust to Sarama’s system.
“Coach has a different style of play than what any hooper is used to,” Caldwell said. “… It’s not very traditional, but I feel like we all love that.”
Building culture will be a democratic process
Culture-building is a huge part of any coach’s responsibility, and it’s something Sarama is taking seriously. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s also something he’s doing in his own way.
His CLA system is part of that strategy, and has even proven useful when managing the team’s staff, he said. “It really allowed us to hit the ground running, and terminology, video, we had everything ready weeks ago.”
The team’s coaching staff will also prioritize a player-led environment. “I think that’s going to be something we really encourage, and I think, tangibly, even things like today… sometimes giving the players a timeout, where the coaches don’t talk. It’s like, ‘Hey, everyone take a 60-second time out, we want you to review these two things, go talk about it, [and] have an answer after.'”
That act was already in motion on day one, when Sarama regularly pulled players into a huddle and broke them off into groups, expecting each to have an answer to any question posed about why practice went one way or the other. The players, in turn, were ready.
But culture is about what happens off the court, too. Like the rest of the team, Gustafson is considering what the team’s culture will be like. “I think it’s a really exciting challenge,” she said. “Especially for me, coming from a championship team.”
Playing for the Fire will give her the opportunity to introduce that kind of winning mentality to the roster, she added. “You know, I loved my time in Vegas, obviously learning to be the best in the world. I’m able to kind of bring some stuff that I’ve learned to pass on to a newer generation, and I’m really excited.”
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Being a veteran is a new experience for Gustafson. One of the players she’ll eventually have the opportunity to mentor is Iyana Martรญn Carriรณn, the team’s first pick in this year’s WNBA Draft who GM Vanja ฤernivec described as a “generational talent”. Though Carriรณn won’t be playing for the team this season, Gustafson is more than familiar with her game and looks forward to when they share the court.
“She’s very unconventional,” Gustafson said. “She has a lot of energy. I think she’s going to fit right in here with the system … she’s a very finesse type of player, whose passes are unconventional … you always have to have your head on a swivel. But I love that.”
Being part of the Fire’s return is a powerful thing, said Emily Engstler, who was also selected during the team’s Expansion Draft. “It’s also just something that I think should be inspiring to all younger girls around the world.” The Fire, and expansion teams in general, represents the possibility that more players could end up in the WNBA, she added. “There’s always a time and place, and I think this is just evidence of that.”
Expansion teams like the Fire will mean that “a lot more women who might not be in the league this year are in there in a couple of years,” Engstler explained. In that sense, the Fire represents the future and even hope.
“[In] my second year, that was me,” she said of players who might be undrafted and unsigned right now. “I got cut from Indiana, and I was quite literally at home watching everything on TV for about two months. So, I’ve been there. I know Haley [Jones] has been there. I know a couple of girls have been there.”
Getting to show other players the potential of a team like the Fire means a lot, Engstler added. “I think it means a lot to everybody, everybody watching, our fans … our fans want W teams.”
Engstler shared that she spent the offseason in Charlotte, N.C., and was often recognized by fans. “I was like, ‘Where’s the team in Charlotte?’ Man, like, we deserve these teams, and like, there’s plenty of girls who deserve to be on rosters, and I hope that everyone gets to fulfill those dreams.”
Of course, thanks to the Golden State Valkyries, expectations for expansion teams are now sky-high. The Valkyries came into the 2025 season under the assumption that the team would underperform; instead, the team made it to the playoffs, and head coach Natalie Nakase was named Coach of the Year.
“The Valkyries set a pretty high standard over there,” Engstler admitted. “So it’s going to be tough to do exactly what they did again, but I think we’ll definitely be on our way with the group that we have.”
The Fire may struggle as they build toward a winning culture, she continued, “But if we do, we really ask the fans to stay behind us, because we are building something really amazing here.”
Jones, who is good friends with Valkyries guard Veronica Burton, also said she’s taking a page from the book the Valkyries penned. Ownership is key, she said, and claiming her role on the team is part of what made Burton successful.
“I think if I could do anything similar to that, that’s what I hope to bring to this team,” Jones explained. “I want to be an impact player [and] do anything I can so we can make a playoffs push in our inaugural season.”
If anyone is responsible for establishing culture for a brand new team, it’s the coach โ and Sarama is ready for the challenge. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his approach to culture-building is also a little different than what often happens in the WNBA.
Because the team didn’t have much in place before training camp began, Sarama saw the opportunity to allow this first group of players to establish a lot for themselves, and for future members of the Fire.
“We’re going to have a set of team values, and it’s not going to come from me,” Sarama explained. “It’s going to come from the players.”
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Those values will be established by a leadership council made up of players from the roster. The council will be tasked with choosing the names for plays and even looking at the calendar and deciding when the team should have days off and when they should get into the gym.
Part of Sarama’s method involves creating psychological safety that encourages players to come up with their own plays on the spot and to even make mistakes. And, again, that approach also applies to what goes on off the court.
“It’s really just creating opportunities for them to be leaders,” Sarama said. “We’re going to sit together as a team and just talk about what culture means to us, and the type of environment we want here in Portland.”
Training camp throws a lot at everyone involved, from players to coaches to the team’s staff to fans, and the democratic process described by Sarama gives the team the chance to slow down and decide what really matters. “I think a lot of times in training camp, coaches come up with buzzwords and it just doesn’t mean much,” he said. “So I really want it to be more tangible, and [to] actually sit down as a group and talk about what the best environment would be, what’s the worst, why, and how can we create the type of environment we want to be in every day” is big part of what he hopes to accomplish with his team โ as a team.
Sarama brings unique style to the WNBA
Of course, much of the coverage of the Fire has been focused on Sarama’s approach, and for good reason. While he’s been deploying constraints-led systems around the world, it’s new for the WNBA, and, accordingly, plenty of people are interested in finding out just how well it works.
Gustafson says part of what sets Sarama apart is that he is “really, really paying attention to the little details that, sometimes, other coaches might not be focusing so much on … so it really keeps your brain on, and keeps your brain thinking all the time.”
“But it’s a great way to learn new things every single day,” she added, “and just little details.”
Engstler agreed. She admitted to being surprised by Sarama’s age, but quickly added, “He’s really an intelligent man, he’s really good at what he does, it’s funny, everything that he has put out here. So I’m super excited to be a part of it and to buy into his work ethic, to what he wants to do the right way.”
The right way means that the team will “pass the ball, shoot when you’re open, be a good teammate, and come to work every day consistently.”
Jones agreed. “He’s crazy smart,” she said. “He talks about the research that goes behind it, going along with the numbers. So it’s been a little bit different, but different in a good way โ not a single wasted rep, we’re not just doing spot-up naked shots to score to start practice. We’re doing everything with defense, some type of concurring with the more CLA thing that we talked about.”
Having played for several teams in the league is helping Jones adapt quickly, she also told reporters. “I think I’ve always taken pride in being a high-IQ player, and somebody with flexibility on the court,” she explained. “I’m able to adapt anywhere I go.”
The Fire is made up of a group of players who are open to learning, Caldwell also said. “The terminology is new, so I need flashcards for that. But I do love how you can tell how much he trusts it. You can tell there’s science, there’s math behind it.”
The result is something that’s fresh, Caldwell added. “It’s a new perspective, and I feel like everyone here really appreciates that.”
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That the players may need a beat or two to adjust isn’t exactly surprising to Sarama. The team’s staff spent a lot of time on the first day of training camp just trying out different strategies to see what would work, but that doesn’t mean he wants understanding the system to be hard.
“I think the first thing is actually having a language, and that’s what is going to be a unique competitive advantage for us,” Sarama said. “We have our own language and our own terminology, and that makes it really easy for everyone to understand the intentions and the things we’re trying to exploit, whether it’s offensively or defensively.”
He continued, “I think that’s going to be something that’s really going to allow us to go into the offense and the defense on a deeper level.”
Not everyone on the roster is in town yet. Getting players up to speed as they arrive will be another unique experience for the Fire and one they’ll address by using “film creatively, so involving all the players who aren’t here yet in what we’re doing in practice every day,” Sarama added. That process will include a question and answer segment in which the players who are not yet in Portland will be expected to review film and then tell the coaches what they think about how practice is going so far.
The team may only be a few days into existence, but if one thing is clear, it’s that everyone is excited to be there.