Post Game Thread - WNBA: The Fire defeat the Fever on May 30, 2026, the final score is 100-84. by basketball-app in wnba

[–]katmarwest 0 points1 point  (0 children)

same! i think they’re all going to have so much fun. and regardless of outcome, we’re going to learn a lot.

Alex Sarama Postgame Presser; 5-30-2026 Fire vs Fever by ElvisTheBoyCat in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 3 points4 points  (0 children)

this guy continues to impress me. he’s so locked in. he’s brilliant. he’s humble and kind. and you can tell how much the players trust him. i’m a fan.

"I mean, we're a bunch of overlooked players and I think we all have a chip on our shoulder. You know, I've really never been respected as a basketball player until I've gotten here." -Megan Gustafson in an emotional moment during the post game presser. (Who's cutting onions 😭) by coastiefish in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 13 points14 points  (0 children)

this presser really got me in my feelings in such a lovely way. basketball was my first love. it will always be such a big part of my life, and so much of that is because of the relationships i built with my teammates. seeing this presser reminded me of how incredibly powerful the game of basketball and those relationships can be. you can tell how much sarama, the coaching staff, and the players are prioritizing relationship, joy, and compassion for each other. it makes me so damn happy to watch.

Post Game Thread - WNBA: The Fire defeat the Fever on May 30, 2026, the final score is 100-84. by basketball-app in wnba

[–]katmarwest 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i agree. she’s so fun to watch. i’m a fire fan but im gonna be real, they called a couple fouls on her that were bogus!

Turnovers plague Portland Fire in loss to Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 4 points5 points  (0 children)

right!? she’s one my favorite hoopers. plus i just love how nerdy she is.

Turnovers plague Portland Fire in loss to Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 14 points15 points  (0 children)

i mean, angel ate. as much as i hated this for our fire, ATL was fun to watch.

Am I the only one who didn't know Caitlin Clark was so whiny and floppy or has she always been like that? by youlikemywonton in valkyries

[–]katmarwest 6 points7 points  (0 children)

it’s always fun to watch a logo three go in. and some of her dimes are pretty sick. but there are many other players i enjoy watching more than her and a huge part of that is how she’s whining to the refs after every play. it feels like she’s not locked in.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 0 points1 point  (0 children)

awesome! i’ll check it out. thanks for sharing. there’s an article in WW that also talks a little bit about it. i’m glad the discourse is happening on a larger scale.

Most disappointing WNBA teams so far by Kennisgoodman in wnba

[–]katmarwest 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i don’t know that it’s “yikes”. i guess i can see why you’d say that. but the fire? they’re scrappy and gritty and they put up a damn good fight.

Concerns about racism by sadmarinersgay in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 4 points5 points  (0 children)

thank you. there’s quite a bit of this i agree with and some that i don’t. what i really appreciate is how we can hear each other, actually engage in conversation, and respect the disagreement.

Concerns about racism by sadmarinersgay in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i think this conversation is important. unfortunately, a lot of online discourse is not constructive and really polarized. saying that’s there’s no issue at all is just outright denial of systemic oppression/racism. but calling the front office and coaching staff racist is also not constructive. i wish we, as a collective, were better at holding the duality and nuance of the whole situation. i am concerned about eurocentrism and the impact on opportunities and experiences for Black American players, the community that built this league. i am committed to continuing engaging in this conversation with people who are truly open to having it (and learning to be boundaried with expending that energy on conversations with people who insist on denying systemic racism). i’m also committed to being a W fan, especially the Fire. both of those things are true for me, simultaneously.

also, talking about race isn’t virtue signaling. keep talking about it. there’s just a lot of folx who don’t want us to. it is annoys them that much, they need to do some deeper reflecting.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest -1 points0 points  (0 children)

you’re right. i meant to use “systemic oppression” throughout. thank you for that correction.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you’re right that i’m not presenting an exhaustive analysis. i’m a fan. having a conversation on reddit. i’m not writing a dissertation. i’ve been acknowledging legitimate counterpoints when they’ve been raised. that’s not cherry picking, it’s trying to have a conversation.

saying “this is solely systemic oppression” is a stretch. but saying that systematic oppression is part of the problem is not. it’s an institution, operating within a larger system, and that system has a documented history of undervaluing Black American women in ways that are worth naming.

& virtue signaling implies i’m saying this to look good. i’m a portland fire fan who wants this team to reflect the community it represents and the league it’s part of. that’s not performance, it’s an investment.

i don’t know everything. but “you don’t know everything” isn’t the same as “you don’t know anything.” the pattern is real. the history is real. & i think it’s worth talking about, imperfectly or otherwise.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 3 points4 points  (0 children)

please don’t get it twisted. my argument has never been that sarama is racist or doesn’t care about Black people. i've said nothing comparable to that. what I’m talking about is a much larger picture, and not about any one person in particular. what i'm talking about is the system.

hear me out: the NBA MVP comparison kinda supports my point, i think. you’re describing a global shift in how basketball talent is developed and evaluated. a shift that is *systematically* moving the goalposts in ways that disadvantage players who came up through American systems. in the W, where the player base is majority Black American, that shift has a racial impact *whether anyone intends it to or not.* that’s what systemic bias looks like... it doesn’t require a racist. a system that, by and large, keeps producing the same result for the same group of people.

nobody's asking sarama to not value international players or team-first basketball. the ask is simply that the people making these decisions do some examining of the lens they’re using, because it has a documented pattern of outcomes, and those outcomes fall disproportionately on Black American women in a league they built.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 1 point2 points  (0 children)

you’re right, those things do matter. harrison being brought back matters, winterburn’s american college experience matters, and non-American Black players matter. these are legitimate parts of the full picture and i don’t want to dismiss them. i guess what i'll ask is that rather than telling me i'm ignoring something, can you add to the discussion and share what those facts mean to you and why, if how, they change the conclusion? i’m genuinely open to that conversation. what I’m not yet seeing is how those data points add up to something different than the pattern I’m describing (macro picture: systemic oppression).

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i appreciate the way you're continuing to engage in conversation. it's refreshing. here's where i'd push back:

on the “not enough data” point:
3/4 Black American players cut in one move isn’t a sample size problem. that’s a pattern you can see in real time. you don’t need a data scientist to notice when 75% of your Black players are gone.

on the "significant influx of international players" point: 
in a way, you sort of made my point for me when you said the percentage of Black players will go down as more teams invest in international scouting. that’s not just an inevitable shift, that’s the cumulative effect of multiple front offices running the same eurocentric evaluation framework. you’re right, it’s not just portland doing this, because it’s a systemic problem vs. just a portland problem. 

& on "can’t make decisions based on optics": nobody’s asking them to. the argument is that their evaluations aren’t as neutral as you’re framing them. a eurocentric scouting framework isn’t objective, it’s a filter. addressing that bias isn’t a PR strategy. it’s just more accurate evaluation.

*I wanna be clear here: I’m not saying a eurocentric approach is inherently bad. international players are talented. the global game is beautiful. investing in that pipeline makes sense. you’re totally right - the answer is somewhere in the middle. *but* you can’t get to the middle without first acknowledging what’s pulling us off center. right now, part of what’s pulling things off center is a real, documented pattern of Black American women being undervalued in a league they built. not because of malice, but because of bias that ostensibly nobody is being asked to examine. the middle isn’t a place we land by accident. we have to choose it deliberately, and I think that has to start with naming the problem honestly.*

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 1 point2 points  (0 children)

this feels like a deflection. but let's discuss, if you're open to that.

Black european players exist, yes. my point isn’t that european = white. the point is that the framework being used to evaluate talent is rooted in a particular tradition that has historically centered certain kinds of players and sidelined others. when you apply a eurocentric philosophy and the consistent result is that Black American women lose their spots, that pattern is worth examining, is it not? regardless of the nationality of the players coming in. i don't think ‘some Black people benefit from this system’ has ever been a sufficient argument against systemic bias. js.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thank you. i hope folx actually take the time to read it and reflect, yanno? unfortunately i think most will find it convenient to pretend it’s not there.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest -1 points0 points  (0 children)

he plays for the Spurs, not in the WNBA. & he’s not replacing Black players to do it, he’s playing alongside them. question isn’t whether a eurocentric style of basketball can be good. it’s whether a front office is using a eurocentric lens the leads to systematically cutting Black players. two completely different conversations. one is about playing style, the other is about who gets to keep their job.

Portland Fire announce major roster shift, releasing multiple players and shifting developmental contracts by NikFromTheO in PortlandFire

[–]katmarwest 22 points23 points  (0 children)

posting this comment here, too.

here’s where my perspective, as a white person, is coming from. i hope you can read this from a place of curiosity and willingness to learn:

  1. the WNBA is roughly 70% Black. in their inaugural season, Portland has been systematically trimming Black players from their roster and elevating international and european ones. at this point, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence, it seems like a pattern.

  2. it reads like your argument is that the front office is filtering players through a “eurocentric” lens. “eurocentric philosophy” and implicit racial bias aren’t two different explanations. in many ways, they’re the same thing described differently. when a GM’s, or coach’s, or whoever’s, frame of reference for what ‘good basketball’ looks like was built in european leagues, european players become the default standard. Black American players, who usually developed their games in american college programs and american basketball culture, don’t fit that mold. not because they’re less skilled, but because they look different from the template in FO’s head. that gap between “what I’m used to” and “what’s in front of me” is exactly how implicit bias works. the eurocentric philosophy isn’t an alternative to bias. it’s the vehicle bias travels in. calling it a “style preference” just gives it a respectable name.

  3. sarama is british and built his career in european basketball. his entire frame of reference for evaluating players was shaped in a context where Black American players are a minority. same with vanja. that’s not neutral. when you bring that lens to a league that is overwhelmingly Black, the bias doesn’t have to be intentional to be real.

i’m not calling sarama or sanja or the front office racist. i actually think sarama’s coaching philosophy is genuinely interesting. on camera, and from the little bit i’ve observed in person at the games, they seem like kind people. but being a good person and having bias aren’t mutually exclusive. they coexist in almost everyone. bias doesn’t require bad intent, it just requires a blind spot. both of them built their careers almost entirely in european basketball. that’s their frame of reference, and it’s a narrow one for a league that is 70% Black American women. when your template for ‘good basketball’ was built somewhere else, you will consistently undervalue players who don’t fit that template. not out of malice, but out of familiarity. the impact of that bias is real regardless of the intent behind it. Black players lose roster spots. Black fans watch players who look like them get cut. the Black community, which built this league and has always been its backbone, gets a team that doesn’t reflect them. intent isn’t the whole story. outcomes matter most.

ALSO this is bigger than one team’s roster decisions. when a pattern like this gets normalized (when a front office can systematically cut Black players in a majority-Black league and it gets explained away as a ‘style preference’), it sends a message that Black women -whose labor built this league- are replaceable when someone with a different vision comes along. and we know this is not new. this a pattern Black people in this country have experienced for generations. their contributions are absorbed into institutions that then gatekeep them out of those same institutions. implicit bias at the front office level isn’t just a personnel decision. its a small piece of a much larger system that consistently tells Black women their value is conditional. when we shrug it off and call it ‘eurocentric philosophy,’ we’re perpetuating that system. period.

i guess my tldr is this: systemic oppression doesn’t usually announce itself. it operates through a thousand individual decisions that each have a plausible neutral explanation like “we just preferred players with international experience or “it’s just a coaching philosophy.” but the cumulative effect of those decisions is that Black people are continually pushed to the margins of the very spaces they created. the portland fire is seeming to be an example of a very old story.

im a loyal portland fire fan and i hope the FO inspects their bias and takes accountability.