Alex Sarama

And then I take off for Europe.

I, I got a wedding for Alex Sarama with the Portland Fire.

He's getting married in Stresa, in just northeast of Milan.

And then I'm jumping over on a train, taking a midnight train over, night train to Berlin, and I'm gonna see the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals of the Women's World Cup.

It's a group that is always gonna compete, and they have a pretty solid identity within the entire organization, honestly, which I think is super important.

And looking at that identity, you look towards head coach Alex Sarama, where he's bringing the system called the constraints-led approach that essentially really emphasizes variability in basketball and kind of ... is a system that they've really instilled in everyone's mindset from front office all the way to the players.

So everyone's really bought into this.

But with that variability, it makes everyone very adaptable, and you see that on the court when they don't have any set plays, actually.

And maybe the WNBA gets to that point because we are seeing more of those just true analytic teams.

Um, you're looking at also Portland with Alex Sarama as well.

Um, You know, Carl, of course, Smezco with Atlanta.

He's, you know, obviously really dialed in in that way, too.

But you're right.

It's usually the younger coaches and we can point to Alex Sarama inside the WNBA.

He's 30 years old, right? He's the head coach of a WNBA team.

So I want to talk about the individual weekend warriors that are out there trying to improve their swim time.

Like I, I really like what they have going on over there.

You know, Alex Sarama, he still got them playing hard, even though they're out of it.

Like they're still making these people work for it.

And I like that.

Portland.

Her and Alex Sarama just spamming pick and rolls, the homecoming.

I could see her just having a beautiful season over there.

I could see some game winners.

But I did want to say, like, I don't mean to throw shots.

I don't mean to make it sound like I'm hating, but like, I just don't get it when I hear the Alex Sarama.

Coach of the Year campaign, because every time we've run into Portland, I'm just, like, not that impressed.

And, you know, we get them two more times, and I feel, like, pretty confident that the Valkyries...

And when he did put in the bench players, at first, like the first couple of times he started subbing people, you could kinda see the dip in intensity.

The, the pace, the ball movement wasn't really there, and I feel like Portland sensed that and they s- they were, they were like, "Okay, this is our opportunity to pounce." And, um, actually one of the things that came up during the pregame press conference with Alex Sarama, and I haven't posted this video in the members area yet, but I will.

Um, even, even though it already happened, like, I, I wish there was more time between pregame and the, the game starting, because, like, there's so much that has to happen, and sometimes I get, like, pretty good quotes and I, I don't always have time to write about them.

But anyway, in the pregame press conference with Alex Sarama, one of the things I asked him was, I said, "You know, you seem to be so locked in on stats and specific styles of playing defense, um, and there's also a certain mentality that you seem to like your team to play with." And I was saying all this based on stuff he had said earlier in the press conference.

And so I said, "When it comes to a team like the Dallas Wings, who has gone through so many different rotations, so many different lineups over the past few games, you may not have a lot of film on all of those combinations.

Are you more focused on your team approaching the game with a certain mentality or are you m- more approached on their technical ap- uh, like, approach to the game and the analytics of it all?" And he said something along the lines of, um, "I, I told them to approach this game like a game of chicken, and we want to force the Wings to be the first to divert off course," you know? And so I think they were doing that, and I think for most of the game it just wasn't working out for them, because as long as the starters were out, out there, that game of chicken mentality that Portland was approaching the game with, uh, they, they were going full force and the Dallas Wings were like, "We will come right back at you." Like, you can't play chicken with a fucking Pegasus, bro.

that is good coaching, right? That is a good leadership skill, right? That is what coaches learn to do is ask those type of questions.

And the reason for that, and I'm sure, you know, Rob Gray and Alex Sarama may go, no, actually we are incorporating that.

And I would go, yeah, that's great.

So CLA could be bigger than it actually is right now.

I want to talk about some of the influences on your, your, your style music.

And it was kind of surprising that, uh, Musicians, actually, let me back up a little bit.

When I read about, and I may have this wrong, Alex Sarama's background with a music background, he's 30 years old.

He's a head coach in the WNBA.

This is a what have you done for me recently list, right? This is how I would rank them right now.

I don't truly care about much of the legacy stuff, right? Just because Brondello's won a title with the New York Liberty doesn't give her rights over her next opponent in head coach, which is Alex Sarama of the Portland Fire.

Comes in also in the A tier.

If you listen to this guy in post-game interviews, pre-game interviews, press conferences, you can tell he's got all of what it takes to be a top head coach in the WNBA.

And she's stayed even with the same efficiency metrics.

You look at the step and the leap that Megan DeLeo has taken, a.k.a. Megan Gustafson, but now married Megan DeLeo.

So Alex Sarama is going to come in also in the eighth year.

He is going to be a phenomenal head coach in this league.