Portland Fire Add Brittni Donaldson in Dual Coaching, Front Office Roles

Ahead of their inaugural season in the WNBA, the Portland Fire are continuing to build out their basketball operations staff. The expansion team announced on Monday morning that they have hired Brittni Donaldson to serve dual roles, as an assistant coach under Alex Sarama and as an assistant general manager under Vanja Černivec.

Donaldson has worked in the NBA since 2017, most recently serving as Director of Basketball Development, Methodology and Integration for the Atlanta Hawks. She was an assistant coach with the Hawks under Quin Snyder for two seasons before that, as well as an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons under Dwane Casey in the 2022-23 season and with the Toronto Raptors under Nick Nurse from 2019-21. Before that, she spent two years with the Raptors as a data analyst.

In her two roles, Donaldson is the first hire for Sarama's coaching staff and the second hire for Černivec's front-office staff. Former WNBA player and Boston Celtics scout Ashley Battle joined the Fire in October as vice president of basketball operations.

In a press release announcing her hire, the Fire called Donaldson "one of the most forward-thinking, analytically driven, and player-centered coaches in professional basketball" and said she will "play a key cross-functional role intentionally designed to challenge the traditional staffing models and support a modern, development-driven expansion team."

Hiring Donaldson in an unconventional role like this is on brand for the nascent Fire front office. Černivec hired Sarama in October as the franchise's first-ever head coach as part of an effort to adopt a cutting-edge training method called the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) as an organization-wide principle. Sarama previously brought that philosophy to the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he served as director of player development last season.

It is not clear when the Fire will complete their coaching and front-office hires. WNBA staffs are allowed to have two assistant coaches, plus a third if it's a former WNBA player. The league put that rule in place in 2020 in an effort to help create a talent pipeline among WNBA players looking to get into coaching after their playing careers were over.

The next steps for the Fire in building their inaugural roster are in a complete holding pattern until the league and players' union agree on a new collective-bargaining agreement. The current CBA was set to expire on Oct. 31, but the sides agreed to a 30-day extension and now have until Sunday to reach a new deal and avoid a work stoppage. It appears unlikely an agreement will happen by then.

Last week, the Associated Press reported that the WNBA offered the WNBPA a new deal with a max salary that could exceed $1 million if certain revenue-sharing benchmarks are hit. ESPN subsequently reported that the players' union doesn't view the latest proposal as sufficient when it comes to allowing the players to share in the league's growth.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said at her pre-Finals press conference in October that the expansion draft for the Fire and fellow incoming expansion team the Toronto Tempo would be put on the back burner until a new CBA is in place. The Golden State Valkyries' expansion draft took place last December; Engelbert suggested in October that the rules for the new draft will be similar. In the Valkyries' draft, each existing team was allowed to protect up to six players.

Barring a prolonged work stoppage, the Fire are set to begin their first WNBA season at Moda Center in May of 2026. They announced in early November that they've eclipsed 15,000 season-ticket deposits.