Portland Fire Nail Their Most Important Hire With New GM Vanja Černivec
The Bhathals prioritized the right things in finding their first leader of basketball operations.
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📍PORTLAND, Ore. — A throwaway line from Lisa Bhathal Merage at last month's Epicenter of Women's Sports summit ended up telling us a lot about the plans for Portland's WNBA expansion team.
"We're at 12,500 [season-ticket deposits]," the Fire's co-owner and primary governor said near the end of a 40-minute panel discussion at the Hyatt Regency hotel in late July. "We're outpacing the Valkyries, and we want to continue to do that."
Throwing shots at Golden State, which has set the bar for WNBA expansion teams impossibly high on and off the court in their first season, was an interesting choice for the owner of a franchise whose rollout to this point has been anything but smooth. Maybe Bhathal Merage's intent was to plant the seeds with fans for a rivalry between the Fire and Valkyries once her team is fully operational next summer.
Stealing the Valkyries' second highest-ranking basketball executive is one way to put your money where your mouth is on that front.
That aside, Tuesday morning's press conference to formally introduce Vanja Černivec as the Fire's first-ever general manager is the most impressed and encouraged I've been since the team was first announced last September.
