The WNBA season is barely two weeks old, but already the Portland Fire have surprised fans with a couple wins, endured some tough losses and even had a bit of controversy. All of this while the Fire are trying to build a new team culture.

Business reporter Kyra Buckley joined OPB “Weekend Edition” host Lillian Karabaic for a temperature read on the new season.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Lillian Karabaic: I love watching the excitement that you and other Oregonians have for the Fire. People kept asking if the team was going to win. But I remembered you saying that expansion teams like the Fire don’t always win a lot of games. So how’s the start of the season going?

Kyra Buckley: Better than expected! Fans only had to wait two games to watch the Fire notch their first win on a buzzer-beater from a player named Sarah Ashlee Barker.

She pulled down an offensive rebound with seconds left in the game, put the ball back up and it went in just as time ran out.

Her teammates piled on top of her, and the crowd went wild.

That’s more than 13,000 people at the Moda Center cheering for the Fire’s win over the New York Liberty 98-96.

Karabaic: Longtime WNBA fans may know some of these names. Is Sarah Ashlee Barker a known star, or someone fans should know about?

Buckley: She’s a young player, this is only her second year in the league, but the story around what she was going through during that second home game will probably endear her to fans as much as hitting that shot. She told reporters after the game it felt amazing to hit the buzzer beater, but …

Sarah Ashlee Barker: It’s been a rough 24 hours, I’ll be honest, just with my family. The people that know the details know the details. I’m not going to go into detail, but just for that to happen tonight and the support that my teammates, my coaches, this organization has given me the past 24 hours — I don’t want to be anywhere else. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Karabaic: I’m struck by how honest Barker is about her headspace going into the game.

Buckley: That stood out to me as well, and I think it’s related to the team culture that head coach Alex Sarama is building. He wants his players to feel safe being themselves.

A Fire practice looks a lot like a neighborhood game of basketball, and Sarama says that’s the point. He wants his players to be creative problem solvers, and that happens less through repetitive drills and more through just playing.

Karabaic: That sounds like a learning-by-doing model. How’s the team reacting to it?

Buckley: Players say they’re bonding quickly and encouraging each other to stay positive through the three losses they’ve had.

But they also had a scrappy second win of the season against the Connecticut Sun on Monday, and afterwards Barker told reporters she’s playing with a lot of joy.

Barker: It’s been a lot of fun this year playing basketball. It really has. I think last year. There were times where I didn’t enjoy it, and that has nothing to do with the organization. That has nothing to do with the people that I was with. That had everything to do with, like, that’s just life sometimes, right? And so I think this year it was a big emphasis on myself was like just go play fun, like go, go have fun, like play like when you’re 6 years old in the driveway with your brothers ... just playing around. Like go have fun because that’s what matters.

Buckley: And Barker has become a fan favorite. During Monday’s game you could hear the crowd at Moda Center chanting her initials “S-A-B.”

Karabaic: So is it nothing but love from the fans? As I said in the open, I’m sensing some controversy on social media around some recent steps the team has taken. What can you tell me?

Buckley: Well yeah, actually. After the Fire made a couple of roster cuts, fans on social media have brought up concerns that the team is now mostly white when the league is mostly women of color.

[The Fire recently cut Sug Sutton, Haley Jones and Kamiah Smalls from their roster.]

Roster cuts are often controversial and are normal at this point in the season. But one fan emailed me asking how team leadership sees their responsibility in creating a diverse roster. I’ve passed along the question, and I’ll let you know when I hear more.

Karabaic: OK, we’ll wait to hear more on that. But in general, how would you gauge fan enthusiasm?

Buckley: There’s a deep well of support for the team and it builds off, for some fans, decades of love for women’s sports and particularly women’s basketball. I talked with Clarice Johnston and her partner, Tina Enberg, about this. These two women have been together for 49 years. And in the ’90s before the WNBA, there was another pro league in town with a team called the Portland Power. The couple went to games for the Power and for the first iteration of the Fire.

Karabaic: What did they say about getting to see this version of the Fire?

Buckley: Johnston told me she’s amazed to be witnessing this moment in history. Both women told me they loved sports growing up, but in the 1960s they didn’t have a lot of opportunities to play on organized teams.

Johnston says that makes it even more phenomenal to see the support the Fire get today.

Clarice Johnston: This crowd now – I mean, then, it was not such an enormous cross section. You know, now, yes, we have big representation, of course, as always, from the lesbian community. We’re always there for our sisters. But now you’ve got everything. You’ve got little kids and their parents, and even guys all by themselves who really like women’s basketball.

Buckley: Of course folks in Portland are so focused on the Fire and [their] first season at the Moda Center and all the excitement there. But they also have to play on the road, in other teams’ arenas. I know, drag. But [Saturday] they get to play the other brand new team and first WNBA franchise in Canada, the Toronto Tempo. This should be a good test for both expansion teams.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/23/portland-fire-sarah-ashlee-barker/