LOS ANGELES – Four games are all the remain for the Los Angeles Sparks before the curtain falls on their 2026 season. The team will miss out on the playoffs for the sixth consecutive year, and they head into the offseason with a little uncertainty amid a new general manager and franchise star Nneka Ogwumike heading into retirement. But for Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts, the group still has plenty to play for.

Earlier this season, Roberts acknowledged that the team’s front office wished to see more of the younger players at the end of the bench on the court. But for her, winning and developing the younger players go hand-in-hand. It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

During the break, the Sparks added three new young players to the roster in Aaliyah Nye, Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda and Shyanne Sellers, and the play over the last two weeks is get them on the court and get them some experience.

“I don’t know how to coach not to win, so we want to try to win. I don’t know how to do it. Every time we play, we want to try to win, and as I said many times, Nneka deserves that,” Roberts said following Sparks’ practice on Sept. 15. “We’re gonna play some of these young guys, but at the end of the day, we want to win. So whoever’s out there, I want them to compete and play the right way.”

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Three of the team’s remaining four games are against teams still fighting for playoff seeding in the Dallas Wings, Las Vegas Aces and Golden State Valkyries. The other game is against the Portland Fire, a team battling the Sparks for lottery odds.

But as Lynne Roberts exclaimed, don’t expect the Sparks to simply roll over for their opponents. While they aren’t fighting for any playoff seeding, they are fighting for pride and to end the season on a high note. Right before the FIBA World Cup break, the team had won two games, one against a playoff team in the Washington Mystics.

Roberts is confident enough in her roster that she believes if they continue to play the way they did before the break, they’re gonna give themselves a fighting chance no matter who their opponent is. And they just might pick up some wins along the way.

“There’s no reason we can’t. I’m not saying we will or that it’ll be easy, but our mentality is if we’re playing the game the right way, we’re gonna give ourselves a chance to do so. We’ve played well the last few games,” Roberts continued. “I don’t care if we’re not a playoff team right now. We still out it to ourselves, to the organization, to our fans to play the right way. Let’s play the right way, compete the right way and end this thing the right way.”