Dream feel pride but looking ahead to uncertain future
When the Dream think of their season, one word keeps popping up.
Pride.
One year ago, the Dream finished the regular season as the eighth seed with just 15 wins. They had just one All-Star in Allisha Gray and no players in the conversation for regular-season awards.
But things look different now. Despite falling short of their championship goals, the Dream have quite a few things to be proud of as they build for future success.
After hiring coach Karl Smesko in November, the Dream doubled their victory total to a franchise-record 30 wins. He helped transform the Dream from the WNBA’s worst offense last season to the league’s second-most efficient this year.
Smesko helped to take the Dream from being the No. 6 defense in the WNBA to one of the league’s most formidable.
He introduced a system that used the best of Gray’s skills and she played her way to an All-Star selection for a third consecutive year. Dream guard Rhyne Howard and forward Brionna Jones made their third and fourth appearances, respectively.
Gray also played her way into the WNBA MVP conversation, finishing fourth in the voting. Dream forward Naz Hillmon won the Sixth Player of the Year award and played her way into the conversation for the Most Improved Player award.
“It was a great year for the Atlanta Dream, historic season,” Smesko said. “Players just accomplished an amazing thing. I’m just very thankful for the efforts and attitude of the players to make this such a special season.”
Smesko, for his part, became a serious contender for the WNBA’s Coach of the Year, finishing second in voting to Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase. Dream general manager and executive vice president of basketball operations Dan Padover won the Executive of the Year award.
“I feel like we had a really great group of people at all levels that just came together and formed as a team and had a historic season for this franchise,” Padover told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Obviously, our end goal is to win a championship and that didn’t happen, but we took some massive strides in building a foundation of the way Karl wants to play and developing some of our players to what we know they can be.”
Setting the foundation
Padover had the sense that Smesko was the right person for the job when the team hired him in November. Smesko built the Florida Gulf Coast University program into one of the top 3-point-shooting teams in the country. He transformed it into a perennial NCAA Tournament team and he left the school with a 611-112 record after 23 years.
“He has a brilliant basketball mind, and he’s very clear on the way he wants to play,” Padover said. “He’s a great teacher, so you can transform that knowledge on the court and let players play, play the way he wants to. Has a lot of poise, has a lot of basketball coaching experience, and he’s really a student of the game. So I knew he would pour into our players. I knew he’d pour into our franchise.”
That winning culture began with the Dream going 12-8 in their first 20 games. That included a 17-point comeback against the Storm in May that capped off a four-game win streak.
“We had a really great year, but stacking years together in this league is a challenge,” Padover said. ”So, we know everything we put into this year we’re gonna have to put everything into next year and then some. So becoming a consistent winner is what our next path is, and we’re excited for it."
Sharing the Dream
The Dream’s on-court success powered an already engaged fan base that had sold out season tickets in 2024. The team sold out its season-ticket allotment for 2025 four months before the season began.
It also led to more fan engagement on social media, with growth in overall audience and engagement across Dream social channels in 2025, according to the team. Its overall social audience grew by more than 25% year over year, the team said.
The Dream also saw more than double the reach of their social posts, meaning that the team’s social media content was seen and shared more than ever before. The team also saw a 350% increase in the sharing of Dream content year over year. Plus, web traffic to the Dream’s website grew more than double year over year, the team said.
The team has also seen fans’ engagement reflected in its retail growth.
“I can easily say that it’s more than doubled, and a lot of that has to do with we are now able to meet the growing demand for women sports fans,” Dream President and Chief Operating Officer Morgan Shaw Parker said. “They are not a typical professional sports fan in terms of: they follow a team, they watch a game, they attend a game and then they buy some gear. What we’re finding out from women sports fans is that they’re repping not only a team, but they’re repping a cause.
“A lot of times, they’ll buy gear before they’ve ever experienced the game, which is really cool, and so it’s a really different dataset that we’re looking at. And I can say that now our organization, over the past year, is now more poised to meet that demand with influencer collabs, with assortments, with merchandising in the arena. … So we’re really becoming smarter in the retail and entertainment space, where sports and entertainment and retail are really merging.”
All of this has laid what the Dream believe is a positive path forward for long-term success. Some things remain in flux with continued negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement in the WNBA. The current CBA expires at the end of the month.
But the Dream remain committed to bringing a championship to their community and to Atlanta.
“Our vision was to create a model franchise for women’s sports that’s on the court, that’s in the community, that’s in your own arena,” Dream managing partner Larry Gottesdiener said. “And I feel like every year, we’re growing this. This has all been happening quietly, behind the scenes, but this year was a bit of a leap step, and that’s fun and exciting, and it does fill us with pride, everybody in the organization.
“This force is volatile. The (WNBA) is volatile. You never know what’s going to happen. … We thought we had a team that could compete for the championship, and we wanted that. So we’re disappointed, but the goal is just to get back up and do that year in and year out. Our goal is to compete for championships year in and year out.”
How that unfolds remains unknown as everyone waits to see how negotiations pan out. But the Dream also have to contend with potentially losing players in upcoming expansion drafts over the next five years, as the league plans to add teams in Toronto and Portland, Oregon, in 2026, Cleveland in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030.
While the Dream are proud of what they did this season, they have their eyes ahead on building off of it.
“Yeah, I think it makes you have some pride that some of the things you hope would work out did work out,” Padover said. “But more than anything in this business, the past doesn’t really matter. You got to really prepare for the future.
“So I think staying hungry, staying aggressive, looking toward ’26 is the most important thing. When you get complacent in this world, that’s when you get in trouble. So, I’m just really excited about building off of this and getting even better for next.”
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