The Portland Fire have hired Alex Sarama, an assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers, as the WNBA expansion franchise's inaugural head coach, the team and Sarama told ESPN on Friday.
Sarama is one of the leading authorities on an innovative training system that has become popular in European basketball, soccer and increasingly in the NBA, counting players like the San Antonio Spurs' Victor Wembanyama and coaches like Cleveland's Kenny Atkinson as true believers.
Sarama told ESPN that having the chance to implement the principles of CLA (Constraints-Led Approach) with an expansion team is an ideal scenario, because he and general manager Vanja Černivec can hire people to fit within the new system and don't have to unlearn a previous system.
"I've had this philosophy for a while," he said. "And I think the setup of being able to do it with an expansion team is so unique. We'll have the chance to impact every department and have a completely unified approach where everyone's working in perfect harmony."
It will be hard for any expansion team to replicate or even come close to the success the Golden State Valkyries had in their first year in the WNBA, but the Fire believes it has a chance to do so because of the unique experiences and approach of its leaders.
Černivec came to the Fire from the Valkyries, where she was vice president of basketball operations. Černivec -- a Slovenian national -- has a deep understanding of the European market.
She met Sarama years ago when they were both working at the NBA Europe office in Madrid and was immediately struck by his intellect and passion for coaching.
"To me he was a genius," Černivec said. "He was producing documents and papers that would take me two hours; he would do it in five or 10 minutes. I was just like, 'How does this kid's brain work?' And his obsession was always coaching.
"I thought he was so brave that at 22 he left a great career at the NBA league office to go coach. He went to Italy and established his own academy and then was just testing it out and figuring it out on his own for five years."
In addition to his academy, Sarama had successful coaching stints with the London Lions, Paris Basketball and the RipCity Remix. His fame really grew after the publication of his bestselling book, Transforming Basketball, in 2024. One of the coaches who read that book was Atkinson, who brought him on as a player development coach for the Cavaliers.
"Kenny really empowered me," Sarama said. "That was huge. Because once the players understand it and start seeing how much it makes them better, and you have complete buy-in, then you can do more and more with it."
CLA is a training methodology that emphasizes adaptability, improvisation and decision-making rather than predetermined movement patterns and drills. For example, Sarama will rarely run the same drill twice, instead using small-sided games with different constraints -- like rule tweaks, scoring changes or time limits -- to force players to make decisions under pressure.
"From my experience so far, the players absolutely love it, because it's such a nice changeup from what they've always done in their NBA careers," Sarama explained. "It's so much more engaging, and when you never know what you might do at practice one day as opposed to doing the same six NBA drills, which every team does every shoot around, every practice. But just coming in and knowing that there's going to be something more creative. I just think it really resonates.
"It's funny because when I was interviewing with NBA teams a couple years ago just before I joined Cleveland, that was always the number one concern, but from my experience, it's always been the opposite. The players absolutely love it."
Pulling from the NBA coaching ranks is becoming increasingly common in the WNBA, especially after the success the Phoenix Mercury had under head coach Nate Tibbetts -- a former Portland Trail Blazers assistant -- and general manager Nick U'Ren -- a former Golden State Warriors assistant -- this season.
Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase -- the WNBA's Coach of the Year -- also came from the NBA assistant coaching ranks.
"The beautiful part about us is being able to start from scratch," Černivec said. "Once you have a staff, it's very hard to unlearn what people know and open their minds to something different."
Sarama said the Cavaliers and Fire are still discussing when he will leave Cleveland and start full time in Portland. The WNBA's collective bargaining agreement is set to expire October 31, and there's no word how negotiations on the new CBA will affect the expansion draft and free agency first. So for the time being, he will be in Cleveland. But Sarama said he hopes there won't be much delay to his start date in Portland, which will open play in May of 2026.