Portland Fire test WNBA norms with chaos-first training plan
ESPN reports the expansion Fire have built their first season around CLA, a practice method designed to make players solve basketball problems on the fly.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
The Portland Fire are making their WNBA entrance with socks-on-court drills, five different basketballs and a head coach who wants practice to feel tougher than the games.
According to ESPN, the expansion franchise has built its inaugural season around the Constraints-Led Approach, known as CLA, under first-year coach Alex Sarama. The method uses changing rules and obstacles in practice so players must adjust in real time rather than repeat the same movement again and again.
For Portland guard Bridget Carleton, ESPN reported, the idea feels a bit like algebra: there is a problem to solve, but the path can change. Carleton told ESPN that basketball offers answers, though not necessarily just one correct answer, and the work is about putting herself in position to find one.
Sarama described a constraint to ESPN as a boundary. In Portland’s workouts, those boundaries can include the size of the ball, how many steps a player can take or how quickly a shot must be released.
Practices built to get weird
ESPN reported that the Fire use the standard WNBA ball, an NBA ball, a heavier 3-on-3 ball, a slippery ball and a smaller ball during shooting work. Sarama’s drills can ask players to shoot while fading, backpedaling, spinning or reacting to a defender arriving without warning.
In finishing drills, ESPN reported, players have been told to send the ball high off the glass as if shooting over a 7-foot-4 defender, while keeping their shooting hand from rising above their nose and taking off from two feet.
Rookie guard Sarah Ashlee Barker told ESPN that one off-balance corner 3 against the New York Liberty felt like a shot she would not have considered earlier in her career. She said the training had made that kind of attempt feel natural.
The oddest-looking clip came in late May, when video of Fire players moving around the floor without shoes drew attention around the league, according to ESPN. Assistant coach Sefu Bernard told ESPN the missing shoes created a slippery condition, making players less likely to jump and forcing them to test unfamiliar movements.
Bernard linked that work to differential learning, which ESPN described as a way of pushing athletes into unusual ranges of motion. He also said the staff is trying to keep drills tied to game situations, even when they look strange from the outside.
A full-franchise experiment
ESPN reported that CLA has been used in sports for decades and is more common in Europe, especially in soccer and rugby. The Los Angeles Dodgers have used the approach in recent years, and ESPN said Kelsey Plum and Victor Wembanyama have also added it to their training.
Portland’s twist is scale. ESPN reported that the Fire apply the method across practices, rotation choices, rest and recovery.
The results are still developing. More than two months into their first season, ESPN reported, the Fire had reached double-digit wins but remained three games out of a playoff spot.
The team’s style has statistical fingerprints. ESPN Research said Portland had the WNBA’s longest average touch length at 3.5 seconds, meaning the Fire held the ball longer and passed less than anyone else. When they did pass, 17% of those passes created a potential assist, the league’s top rate, according to ESPN Research.
ESPN Research also said Portland made the second-most shots per game in the paint outside the restricted area. Guard Carla Leite was central to that attack, leading the league with 16.1 drives per game, according to ESPN.
Sarama also uses a 10-player rotation, with ESPN reporting that players usually stay on the court for about four minutes before resting two to three minutes. Barker told ESPN that the pattern pushes her to play without saving energy because she knows a rest is coming.
This story draws on original reporting from ESPN.com.