Portland Fire head coach Alex Sarama will change how the WNBA is played with the Constraints Led Approach (CLA). The CLA is a learning method based on psychology and neuroscience that replaces traditional training with special restrictions, forcing the athletes to adapt immediately. Sarama will begin his WNBA coaching career after spending many years as an assistant in the NBA. As Sarama helps usher in a new era with the Fire, he looks to implement an unconventional strategy that will create success sooner rather than later.

Portland will begin playing in the 2026 season as one of the newest expansion teams to join the WNBA. The Fire will build their roster through the expansion draft, which has yet to be assigned a date due to ongoing CBA negotiations. Whoever they select to join them next season, each player will learn a different way to train than they may be used to. Sarama is currently assisting the Cleveland Cavaliers, one of the teams that adopted the CLA. Different teams in basketball practice and train under different restrictions, so the athletes are prepared for game situations. With Sarama joining Portland next year, he will look to stay ahead of the competition while beginning a trend that will change how women’s basketball is played.

Teams around sports use the CLA in different ways during training to prepare for in-game scenarios. When San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama joined the league, different teams used pads on extended sticks to simulate his 7’4” height. While it’s an unconventional way of training, many bigs were able to play well against him because of this strategy. Another strategy often used in basketball is running into pads during layup drills to adapt to the physicality of the game. Like running sprints helps with players' conditioning, these strategies help with the athletes’ adaptation to the ever-changing game.

While players in the WNBA are different from NBA players, Sarama could use the same approaches, along with different, unique strategies to help the Fire win. While the tallest player in the WNBA, Brittney Griner, is only 6’9”, pads on sticks could still be useful. However, they could be used at different parts of the floor to simulate her ability to space the floor on offense and crowd different players on defense. The WNBA has become a physical league, with foul calling being a point of discussion in CBA negotiations. While running into football-type pads on drives to the basket in training isn’t traditional, it could be useful to incorporate it to simulate the physical play. The CLA works to train players to develop their skills in order to compete against the best athletes. In the WNBA, the CLA could prove to be the blueprint to defend superstars like Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson, and Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers.

Aside from their skill on the court, each star is able to impact the game in different ways at an elite level. Scoring point guards like Bueckers and Clark can shoot at every part of the floor, but can also destroy defenses with their playmaking. Clark shot up in the college ranks, then in the WNBA because of her elite shot-making. Resembling Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, Clark’s range starts once she crosses the half-court line. However, when defenses start to crowd her, she has the ability to get her teammates the ball so they can still score. While the non-traditional way to guard Clark has started to become a normality, there is a different strategy to defend her that aligns with the CLA.

Like Curry, Clark can be just as dangerous without the ball in her hands as she is as a shooter. She can get to where she needs to be, where her teammates can set her up for catch-and-shoot threes that are set up by her off-the-ball movement. There are different ways to strategize this skill on defense, like different drills that simulate Clark’s off-the-ball movement. These drills could involve letting the players learn through trial and error to improve their problem-solving skills, or different spatial awareness drills to improve awareness of where their opponents are on the floor. Along with focusing on her movement without the ball, different constraints can be put in place during drills to simulate crowding Clark at the half-court like, while limiting the number of passes she can make to focus on both areas. While there is no one way to defend a player like Clark, different constraints could be put in place during practices to better prepare players to defend her.

Sarama is in a unique position as the head coach of an expansion team, but that gives him the perfect opportunity to implement the CLA immediately. With the specifics of Portland’s roster unknown, they will likely be a team with little to no expectations to succeed right away. Basketball has proven to be a copycat-adjacent, success-based industry, and the WNBA could be no different. In the NBA, an analytics approach to winning from Philadelphia 76ers General Manager Daryl Morey, when he was with the Houston Rockets, proved to be successful. Although they never saw a championship while Morey was at the helm, the league shifted toward more analytics-based approaches because of his success with the Rockets.

In the WNBA, the Golden State Valkyries became the first expansion franchise to make the postseason in their inaugural season this past year. Although they didn’t make it past the first round, they laid out a blueprint that other expansion teams like the Fire can build on. Portland decided to hire General Manager Vanja Černivec from the Valkyries, who was the Vice President of Basketball Operations for this past season.

Like the Fire, Golden State started its franchise with zero expectations to succeed. Now that they’ve proven they can win, there is a bigger microscope on other expansion franchises like Portland. Although they will be under a brighter spotlight, the Fire shares similar expectations to the Valkyries, at least until they select their roster. With the CLA proven to be successful in the NBA, it's a strategy being adopted by more teams around the league. 

Now with Sarama coaching in the WNBA, he can prove the CLA can work in men’s and women’s basketball. The Fire will start the roster-building process with zero expectations to succeed. If they fail to win many games immediately, it won’t be surprising. However, if the CLA is proven to bring Portland success quickly, Sarama will be seen as a savant in changing the game of women’s basketball.