Head coach Karl Smesko’s debut season at the helm of the playoff-bound Atlanta Dream has been a historic effort.
Karl Smesko’s debut tour at the helm of Atlanta’s WNBA franchise has been a Dream come true.
The Atlanta Dream’s 87-62 win over the Connecticut Sun on Monday proved vital in more ways than one: not only did Atlanta remain in the driver’s seat in the hunt to secure the second seed on the WNBA playoff bracket but Smesko made league history with the 29th triumph of the season, as it set a new league record for first-year head coaches that had stood for a quarter-century.
HISTORY MADE!! 🔥
Karl Smesko has earned his 29th win of the season — the most ever by a first-year head coach in WNBA history.#DoItForTheDream | #COY pic.twitter.com/dI78ShDGE6
— Atlanta Dream (@AtlantaDream) September 9, 2025
Smesko surpasses Michael Cooper, as the Los Angeles Lakers legend had 28 during his first time with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2000. Cooper, ironically enough, coached the Dream for four seasons (2014-17) and stands as the last head coach to oversee an Atlanta playoff series win back in 2016.
The work of the longtime Florida Gulf Coast women’s basketball head coach has many believing that such a drought will end soon and some are even ready to place Atlanta (29-14) in the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2013.
Karl Smesko’s Case for WNBA Coach of the Year
Setting this mark should be a sterling argument for Smesko’s Coach of the Year case, which is set to go up against worthy contenders like Natalie Nakase of the Golden State Valkyries and Cheryl Reeve of the league-leading Minnesota Lynx. Marynell Meadors is the first, and to date only, Atlanta coach to land the honor, doing so in 2009.
“He’s been able to adapt. He’s been able to relate. So, I think it’s just the makings of what I feel like is definitely a Coach of the Year candidate,” Atlanta forward Naz Hillmon, she of 14 points on Monday, said in the aftermath, per Jack Haslett of Atlanta Dream on SI. “Every game he’s always trying to figure out how he can be better and how we can be better… Coach is also thinking about ways he can improve game to game, and he absolutely does that.”
Entering Tuesday night play, Atlanta holds a half-game lead over Las Vegas for the second seed, though the latter has both a game in hand and the tiebreaker after sweeping the three-game season series. The Dream wraps up its regular season on Wednesday night against the aforementioned Sun in Uncasville (7 p.m. ET, Peachtree TV).
Geoff Magliocchett is on X @GeoffJMags
