The Candace Curse struck early.
On a day the Sparks retired the jersey of the superstar whose departure has coincided with their five-year funk, Candace Parker nearly missed her pregame news conference.
With a room full of media types eager to write that rare positive Sparks story, Parker got caught in convention traffic and was so late that the game was starting and she took just five minutes’ worth of questions.
The Candace Curse struck late.
In the fourth quarter against the Chicago Sky at Crypto.com Arena, in front of a crowd waving yellow Candace Parker T-shirts, the Sparks did something they’ve been doing in bunches since Parker skipped town after the 2020 season.
A dreary Sky team missing star Kamilla Cardoso still managed to beat a Sparks team filled with Parker inspiration, winning 92-85 with a fourth-quarter rally and turning what should have been the best day of the year into the worst loss of the season.
“It’s tough,” said the Sparks’ Emma Cannon.
Tough to play, tougher to watch, this being the Sparks’ 12th loss in 17 games as they spiral toward their familiar spot in the bottom of the WNBA standings.
This was once a special franchise, as the classy halftime jersey retirement ceremony for Parker reminded everyone, with Lisa Leslie introducing and Parker embracing and the standing crowd a little teary.
This is now a blight of a franchise, as the surrounding 40 minutes of basketball reminded everyone, the Sparks playing hard but sorely lacking in talent, direction and any sort of playoff future.
In the final five of Parker’s 13 seasons here, the team went 108-50 and reached the Finals twice while winning their third championship.
In the five years since then, they are 55-110 and haven’t reached the playoffs.
If that’s not a curse, it’s a mighty powerful coincidence.
History shows that it could have been, and should have been, so much different.
Parker, a two-time MVP and seven-time All-Star, should have played her entire career here. She never should have left as a free agent. Like Leslie, she should have been a Spark forever.
“No idea how they let her get away,” said Leslie to The Times’ Anthony De Leon.
She left because of problems with then-coach Derek Fisher, because of the Penny Toler postgame-tirade controversy, because the organization had already begun its downward spiral.
If the Mark Walter-led ownership group had been paying attention, she would have stayed a Spark. If owners put the same effort they put into running the Dodgers, the issues would have been handled and Parker would have been prioritized. She was not, and then she was gone.
“The culture was toxic…I was part of that culture and had been absorbed in that toxicity,” Parker wrote in her book, “The Can-do Mindset.”
She also left because she wanted to play near her Chicago-area hometown, and she later bolted there for Las Vegas, and won titles in both places when she should have been winning them here. Here’s guessing she would have rather won them here, as Sunday she acknowledged Los Angeles had become her home.
“L.A. isn’t just about ball,” she told the crowd during the halftime ceremony. “For me anymore, it’s now where we call home and we will forever call home. So thank you so much, I love you all, I’m so appreciative, and I can’t believe it. Thank you all. Thank you.”
One can’t blame her if she no longer recognizes her former team. The Sparks no longer have a superstar, a deep bench, a championship hope in hell.
Full disclosure: I am a Sparks honk. I’m such a fan that my daughter MC and I have partial season tickets.
Also full disclosure: When picking our seats for this season, we had a choice to sit behind either bench, so we took the ones behind the visiting bench. The visitors always have more stars, the visitors are always more fun.
Certainly, these Sparks have some shining moments. Kelsey Plum works as hard as any star in any local sport, Azurá Stevens is one of the league’s underrated forces and Dearica Hamby is solid.
But a series of lousy draft picks and a lack of an attractive infrastructure — that imaginary permanent practice facility is being built any day now! — have kept them from acquiring the sort of superstars that carry teams in crunch time, the kind of difference-makers this town deserves.
“I feel like we’re right there,” Plum told me before Sunday’s game. “We’re young, we lack depth and cohesion, those things take time, I have faith that throughout the season we’ll continue to build.”
Plum has been an outstanding addition since coming here last winter in a trade, she works harder in pregame warmups than some players during the entire game, but what she’s saying, we’ve heard before.
The latest spin is that the Sparks’ No. 2 overall draft pick Cameron Brink will make a big difference when she returns from knee surgery later this summer. But she didn’t make a huge difference early last season when she played. Their other top draft pick from last season, Rickea Jackson, scored six points Sunday and has basically been a bust.
Barring the signing of a major free agent — who wants to play on a team with no permanent home? — there’s not much help coming next year because they’ve traded their first-round pick.
So their motto should be…Waiting for JuJu?
It’s all so depressing, especially on a day that should have been so uplifting.
Before the game, new coach Lynne Roberts — her honeymoon is already over — called this a “must-win.”
Since the Candace Curse, that has meant, “About to lose.”
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