​No Offseason Newsletter 🏀 | This is The Athletic’s women’s basketball newsletter. Sign up here to receive No Offseason directly in your inbox.Welcome back to No Offseason. Today:✖️ Sparks GM outAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement🏆 Our midseason awards🗳️ Take our poll!Let’s go.The Sparks have been desperately trying to reestablish a winning culture for the entirety of the 2020s, missing the playoffs the past five seasons. Halfway through the 2026 campaign, which was touted as a contending season, the Sparks are under .500 and once again outside of the playoff picture. On Sunday, the organization announced it “agreed to part ways” with general manager Raegan Pebley. But the timing is curious, to say the least.Pebley leaves a wake of questionable decisions over the course of her two-plus-year tenure, but with less than three weeks to go before the WNBA trade deadline, was now really the moment to make a change?AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt’ll be interesting to see how the team approaches the GM hire. Pebley came with a coaching track record, but no front-office experience. Veteran executive Karen Bryant was the GM before her but never intended to actually stick around, and Derek Fisher backed into the GM role when the Sparks fired Penny Toler in 2019 and never bothered to replace her. Ownership values front-office expertise, based on the track record with the Los Angeles Dodgers (they share ownership), but the WNBA has a very different pipeline of available GM candidates.Assistant GMs Zach Knowlton and Nate Nielsen will jointly handle the role on an interim basis. Their first order of business must be figuring out what moves can be made at the trade deadline, specifically as it pertains to guard Kelsey Plum.Pebley landed Plum in a three-team trade that cost the Sparks the No. 2 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft, which amounted to center Dominique Malonga. In Plum’s first season with the Sparks, she earned her fourth All-Star nod, averaging 19.5 points per game, 5.7 assists and 3.1 rebounds. The Sparks went 21-23 and finished ninth in league standings, narrowly losing out on the final playoff spot to expansion franchise Golden State Valkyries.The two-time WNBA champion agreed to return to L.A., signing a one-year, $999,999 contract. She was once again named an All-Star reserve, though she has missed 10 of 22 games and the Sparks are 3-7 without her.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe question the Sparks have to answer ahead of the deadline: Can they count on Plum to return in free agency? If the answer is no, they have to shop Plum and go all in on the JuJu Watkins sweepstakes.📈 ICYMI, Cheryl Reeve set the regular-season wins record last week, with 380 victories. The Lynx coach already owned the WNBA playoff wins record.🎬 Angel Reese is exactly where she should be. Why she’s the perfect fit for the Dream, in the “Hollywood of the South.”👫 Former Vice President Kamala Harris an