Atlanta Dream’s WNBA playoff chase was part of a ‘progress plan’

Editor’s note: This article is part of the Program Builders series, focusing on the behind-the-scenes executives and people fueling the future growth of their sports.

Early in the third quarter of their seventh game of the season, the Atlanta Dream trailed the Seattle Storm by 17 points on the road. For much of the first half, the Dream played at a slow pace, using a stagnating offense. The ball stuck and players didn’t attack downhill the way first-year WNBA coach Karl Smesko had wanted.

Smesko called a timeout just over a minute after halftime. He reminded his players — a group that he had been coaching for less than six weeks — that the game was far from over. If they could attack the rim and get stops on defense, they would have a chance to be back in the contest.

Following the regroup, three-time All-Star Rhyne Howard attacked right, hitting a 10-foot floater and drawing a foul as well. On the ensuing Atlanta possession, Howard broke Storm center Ezi Magbegor down off the dribble, sinking another floater and drawing a foul. A 17-point deficit became 11. The Dream had life.

Atlanta went on to win by seven that night. Howard finished with 33 points, while her backcourt partner, Allisha Gray, added 28 points. That night in Seattle, Dream general manager Dan Padover reflected on what he had seen so far. “That was the first time I really started to think, ‘OK, we might have something here,’” he said.

Padover’s inclination proved true.

What the Dream turned out to have was a roster capable of amassing the most wins (30) in franchise history. Smesko won the most games for a first-year WNBA head coach, and Atlanta finished with a top four playoff seed for the first time since 2018. With a win on Tuesday night in Game 2 of their first-round series against the Indiana Fever, the Dream could move to the league semifinals for the first time in seven years. “Big thing for us is understanding that the job is not done in this series,” Smesko said after their series-opening 80-68 victory.

When Padover was hired in October 2021, after winning executive of the year twice in three seasons with the Las Vegas Aces, he said that Atlanta owner Larry Gottesdiener told him to treat the franchise as if it were an expansion team, insofar as the general manager had an ability to shape the roster however he saw fit. Padover saw the Dream’s rebuild as needing time. “Don’t skip steps,” he said. But unlike expansion teams, Atlanta lacked players. It had just three players under contract heading into the 2022 offseason.

“We were just gonna have to do things differently,” Padover said.

Without lottery luck, that meant trades — 10 to be exact. Since 2022, the Dream acquired key draft picks (including the No. 1 pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft, which was used to select Howard) and players (including Gray and guard Jordin Canada) in deals with other teams.

There was no magic switch that flipped inside the Dream organization this season, just a gradual build that needed a steady steward.

Smesko came to Atlanta with the reputation as an offensive guru and a winner at Florida Gulf Coast. Entering the 2024 college season, he boasted the third-highest winning percentage among active coaches, behind UConn’s Geno Auriemma and LSU’s Kim Mulkey. But it’s his intentional methods that struck players right away. “Everything he says has a reason, has a purpose, and it all makes sense,” four-time All-Star center Brionna Jones said.

Smesko doesn’t put together practice plans, instead calling them “progress plans.” In training camp, he routinely stopped intra-squad scrimmages when he saw Atlanta players leaking out in transition without ensuring they saw a teammate grab a defensive rebound with two — not one, but two — eyes. (The focus has paid off, as the Dream are the No. 1 defensive rebounding team in the league.)

Atlanta is No. 2 in defensive rating, but its offensive evolution has been key, too. The Dream went from 12th in offensive rating in 2024 to second. But more than any overriding philosophy, Smesko said he has tried to keep things simple.

“I try to be careful not to overcomplicate things too much,” he said. “Let the best players in the world play, teach them how they can utilize their skills a little bit better to even become more efficient with their talents.”

For no player has that approach been more evident than Gray, who went from an All-Star-level player to the league’s best guard in 2025. She started in this year’s All-Star Game. “Just a clarifying moment of what a big-time player she’s become,” Padover said. She is likely to finish in the top four in MVP voting, averaging career-highs in points (18.4), rebounds (5.3) and assists (3.5) per game.

Atlanta acquired Gray via a trade in January 2023 with the Dallas Wings. Padover said that at the time, Atlanta’s analytics model showed she was one of the most undervalued players in the WNBA. The Dream sent Dallas their No. 3 pick and a first-round pick in 2025 in return. “I was very bullish on what she could become here,” Padover said. “I knew that she had a much higher ceiling than she currently was playing at in Dallas.”

But it would have been hard to predict this exact leap.

Padover saw a player with not only All-Star potential, but one who might want to stay in Atlanta. Gray grew up two hours south of the city and attended South Carolina. With the Dream, Gray has felt the most comfortable. “I feel like I’ve had the ultimate green light,” she said earlier this season.

It helps that she does not have to star alone. Alongside Howard, who is now one of her closest friends, Gray can feed off another play-making wing. The duo has a plus-8.7 net rating this year, the highest mark in their three years playing together. Howard has also assisted Gray 36 times this season, tied for fourth most league-wide among guard pairs.

Part of Padover’s recognition that this year might be especially notable for the Dream stems from seeing his players want to be in Atlanta. That might sound like a simple concept, he said, but as a franchise that isn’t a traditional free-agent destination, buy-in is important.

“Our foundation is coming from Atlanta,” he said. “Continuity on teams is just as big of an advantage as talent.”

The Dream signed future Hall of Famer Brittney Griner and Jones this past offseason — both moves paying dividends. Such signings have been more anomalous than expected. It’s why Padover called it a “monumental moment for our franchise.”

Last winter, Padover recognized that the job ahead was not only to win, but to convince Griner and Jones — and frankly, the rest of the league — that Atlanta could be more than a plucky story.

“Our job is day in, day out to show these players why not only they should come here, but why they should stay here,” he said. “And I’ve always said the most important thing is to recruit your own players.”

But no pitch will be stronger than a deep playoff run.

Smesko was clear in their first training camp meeting that he felt the Dream could be the league’s most improved team — they were — and that they expected to be in the playoffs — they are. He told players they had the personnel to win a championship.

“We’re not the only team that’s capable of going on a run and winning this,” he said. “So somebody’s gonna play really well, (and) you’re gonna have to probably make your own breaks a couple (of) times. But we definitely have a team that’s capable of winning the whole thing.”

He’s been asked repeatedly to reflect on their lack of postseason experience as a group.

“If you can win that first series, suddenly you’ve got experience winning a playoff series, and then you build off it from there,” he said.

“Build” is the apt word. They take pride in constructing a contender. What remains to be seen is what exactly the ceiling is.

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(Photo: Adam Hagy / NBAE via Getty Images)