The Los Angeles Sparks are in the midst of a rebuild that was accelerated with two lottery picks in the 2024 WNBA Draft. One of those lottery picks, Cameron Brink, is lost for the season due to an ACL injury. Wins have been hard to come by. But all is not lost for the Sparks. Despite the team's struggles, including their recent loss to the Washington Mystics, veteran center Azurá Stevens believes the Sparks are on the right track.

“In these type of years, it's a lot of growth happening. Even before Cam got hurt, we had two rookies starting and that's a lot of pressure on them. But that's a lot of experience for them as well,” Stevens said following Friday's loss. “So it's good growth but it's a lot of growing pains. We have to work through a lot of these things and we have to find a way to close out games.”

Closing out games has been an area of concern for the Sparks this season. During their loss on Friday against the Mystics, the Sparks allowed a 21-7 run by Washington to start the fourth quarter. They did not score until the seven minute mark. The Sparks had been within a single point at the end of the third quarter. But as has been the case, the game got away from them in the fourth quarter.

“I think we're starting to see that. We've been seeing that, we've been in a lot of games. It's not like we've gotten blown out a lot this season,” Stevens said. “We've been in a lot of close games and we have to find ways to really lock in at the end and take advantage and really get the lead at the end. We have a lot of newer players who haven't necessarily played this amount of minutes before, so I think it's a lot of growing pains.”

Sparks continue to build good habits amid tough season

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Azurá Stevens is one of three players on the Sparks who have won a championship along with Dearica Hamby and Lexie Brown. Stevens was a key reserve for the 2021 Chicago Sky. Before that, she played two seasons for the Dallas Wings when they went a combined 25-43. She's seen young teams, developing teams and winning teams. And she is encouraged by what the Sparks have done despite the losses.

“We're trying to build the right culture here. We're trying to do the right things even though the results aren't necessarily coming out as wins. But I know it's important to build good habits, championship habits and we're trying to do that every day so the wins will come,” Stevens said. “And once the wins come, it'll make it even better that we've started to implement a lot of that stuff even through all the losses.”

Stevens was one of two players, the other being Stephanie Talbot, who inked a contract extension with the Sparks this week. That's a good sign in terms of the type of culture the team is building despite the losses.