ATLANTA - Point guard Ivory Latta gazed at the crowd during an exhibition game at Philips Arena, hoping the turnout of almost 8,000 was a sign of things to come for the Atlanta Dream.
Just off a surprising playoff run by the city's NBA team, is Atlanta ready to embrace another pro basketball team? Atlanta's new WNBA franchise tips off next weekend, having learned one big lesson from the Hawks taking the heavily favored Boston Celtics to seven games in the opening round of the postseason.
General manager and coach Marynell Meadors said: ``To win, that's all. You win, they'll come.''
New owner J. Ronald Terwilliger is counting on it. The chairman and CEO of a national real estate company bought an expansion team with the hopes of making the playoffs by its fourth season.
Until then, he wants to prove the Dream is capable of filling seats and not become just another team that's here today, gone tomorrow.
Since the league was founded in 1997, four teams - Charlotte, Cleveland, Miami
and Portland - have folded and two others moved to new cities.
Even though the WNBA is still trying to gain acceptance, Dream president Bill Bolan is confident women's basketball can thrive in Atlanta, a city that rarely produced sellout crowds for the Hawks during the regular season.
Most of the roster is filled with role players and rookies. It showed in the Dream's first pre-season game against the Los Angeles Sparks, when Atlanta fell behind by more than 20 points before rallying in the fourth quarter to lose by only six.
Monday
May 5th, 2025
12:46PM
