The Los Angeles Sparks are a professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California, playing in the Western Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team was founded before the league's inaugural 1997 season began. The team is owned by Williams Group Holdings (Paula Madison, majority owner) and Carla Christofferson, Kathy Goodman, and Lisa Leslie (minority owners). Like some other WNBA teams, the Sparks have the distinction of not being affiliated with an NBA counterpart, even though the market is shared with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Sparks have qualified for the WNBA Playoffs in eleven of their fourteen years in Los Angeles. The franchise has been home to many high-quality players such as 6 foot 5 inch center Tennessee standout Candace Parker, flashy point guard Nikki Teasley and nearby USC product Tina Thompson. In 2001, 2002 and 2003, the Sparks went to the WNBA Finals. They won the title in 2001 and 2002, beating Charlotte and New York, respectively, but fell short to Detroit in 2003.
Being in a major national market, the Sparks have always been a focal point of the league; they faced New York in the league's inaugural game on June 21, 1997. Like the Tulsa Shock, the Sparks are one of the two WNBA franchises whose city also has an NBA D-League team, the D-Fenders.
Read more about Los Angeles Sparks: Season-by-season Records, Statistics, Media Coverage
Famous quotes containing the words los angeles, los, angeles and/or sparks:
“... when I finish reading People, I always feel that I have just spent four days in Los Angeles. Womens Wear Daily at least makes me feel dirty; People makes me feel that I havent read or learned or seen anything at all.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)
“If Los Angeles is not the one authentic rectum of civilization, then I am no anatomist. Any time you want to go out again and burn it down, count me in.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Cities are ... distinguished by the catastrophic forms they presuppose and which are a vital part of their essential charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or vertical bombardment: Towering Inferno. Los Angeles is the horizontal fault, California breaking off and sliding into the Pacific: Earthquake.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honor in thee have I seen.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)