'The new Atlanta Dream': How the wayward WNBA franchise convinced top talent to embark on a total rebuild

• The Atlanta Dream have had a tumultuous year, complete with ownership changes and player fights.
• The wayward WNBA franchise hired a new, highly-regarded management team as part of a total rebuild.
• A team co-owner, president, and newly-hired GM all spoke to Insider about righting the ship.

Atlanta has been home to a WNBA team for more than a decade.

But as far as ownership and management are concerned, Monday, October 25, 2021, is "day one of the new Atlanta Dream."

Following months of tumult, the franchise began a new chapter Monday morning by naming Dan Padover as the Dream's new general manager. Formerly the GM for the Las Vegas Aces, Padover will assume Atlanta's long-vacant GM position six months after the franchise abruptly parted ways with former GM and President Chris Sienko.

The Dream acquired one of the WNBA's prominent front office masterminds in Padover, who comes to Atlanta fresh off of earning WNBA Basketball Executive of the Year honors for the second consecutive season.

"The opportunity to bring someone like that into your organization doesn't happen that often," Dream co-owner Suzanne Abair told Insider. "When he became available, we leaped at the opportunity to have conversations with him."

"Dan [Padover] is a man of integrity," she added. "He's a straight shooter, [he values] accountability, and his ability to oversee the rebuild of our basketball operations - that to us was really the selling point for Dan."

Padover comes aboard a new-look leadership team featuring President and COO Morgan Shaw Parker and Head Coach Tanisha Wright, who joined the franchise in September and October, respectively. Darius Taylor - the Dream's interim head coach for the second half of the 2021 season - will support Padover as the team's assistant general manager.

Atlanta's ownership group - which includes Abair, real estate executive Larry Gottesdiener, and former Dream star Renee Montgomery - assumed control over the franchise mere weeks before the 2021 season began. Since then, they've been incredibly intentional in exercising the patience necessary to recruit collaborative, complementary leaders and put "the right people in the right positions," as Abair explained.

Now that those right people are in place, Abair says they'll be entrusted with "an absolute, total rebuild of the franchise."

"That's what I love about this ownership group," Shaw Parker told Insider. "They are very, very good at putting powerful leadership teams together, and they're going to let us go do our job."

"The beauty of this is that Monday - when this announcement comes out - is day one."

Atlanta is moving forward with "a different mindset than what has been here previously"

The Dream has left much to be desired in recent years with a combined 15-39 record over the 2020 and 2021 seasons. But somehow, the franchise's off-court woes have managed to trump all over the past 14 months.

In the summer of 2020 - while the team was competing in the WNBA's bubble in Bradenton, Florida - former team owner and US Senator Kelly Loeffler spoke out against the Black Lives Matter movement and its place in the league. WNBA players - 80% of whom are Black - quickly called for Loeffler's removal from the league.

But once that effort failed, they chose a far more creative tactic: openly endorsing her opponent, Reverend Raphael Warnock, in their Georgia Senate race. Five months later, Loeffler was ousted from her Senate seat, and research shows that the WNBA players' efforts were instrumental in Warnock's unlikely victory.

Loeffler's ugly feud with her players left her with little choice but to part ways with the franchise. With six weeks remaining before the 2021 season tipped off, Abair, Gottesdiener, and Montgomery purchased the team - and inherited all of the challenges that came with it.

Ownership fired Sienko - who had been Atlanta's GM for three years and its president for two - just a week after he steered the franchise through the 2021 WNBA Draft. Ten days later, three-year Dream head coach Nicki Collen left Atlanta to take over the helm for the Baylor Bears.

Then-assistant Mike Petersen assumed the mantle for the Dream less than two weeks before their season opener. In July, he stepped down due to health concerns after leading the team to a 6-13 record. Ownership then passed the reins to Taylor, who now will serve as the team's assistant GM.

Without steady leadership, chaos at the executive levels of the franchise trickled down to the team and its players. In July, Atlanta indefinitely suspended star guard Chennedy Carter - seen by many as the franchise's future - after she allegedly attempted to fight All-Star teammate Courtney Williams in the locker room in response to a heated exchange during a game.

Three months later, Williams found herself in hot water with the franchise, too. She and guard Crystal Bradford were among a trio of Dream players who engaged in a brawl outside of a day club in late May, shortly after the 2021 season began. Kalani Brown, a 6-foot-7 center waived by Atlanta just days before the fight, was also part of the scrum.

Though the physical altercation took place some five months prior, footage of the scuffle arose and went viral early in October. The tape shows Williams and Bradford fist-fighting with a group of women while standing near a Tenders & Bites food truck, with the Dream's lone 2021 All-Star seen throwing several punches in the nearly two-minute clip.

The team subsequently informed both players that they would not be re-signed to Atlanta's roster "under any circumstances," The Next's Howard Megdal reported. Williams played all 32 games for the Dream during the 2021 season and led the team in points, rebounds, and assists.

With the promise of a blank slate, ownership convinced top sports management talent to lead a complete overhaul in Atlanta

Abair, Gottesdiener, and Montgomery waited months before filling the vacant leadership positions throughout their franchise. After Sienko's departure, Abair became the Dream's president, and Montgomery slid in behind her as vice president.

But much to the chagrin of Atlanta's fans, the Dream played an entire season without a GM in place. And while ownership heard supporters' concerns, Abair and company were steadfast in their belief that the right people were worth the wait.

"There was some frustration on some people's parts that we didn't rush to just hire a new management team," Abair said. "But it was important for us to be patient to find the right people - to find people that shared our values, to find the right executives that we really believed could work with us, the ownership group, to build a franchise that we could be proud of."

"But more importantly, [to build a franchise] that the city of Atlanta would embrace and be proud of," she added.

Shaw Parker was the first of the highly-touted new hires. A longtime NFL executive, she came to the Dream in September after many years as VP and chief marketing officer for Arthur M. Blank Sports & Entertainment (AMBSE) - the ownership group for the Atlanta Falcons, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and Atlanta United.

Before that, she spent more than 10 years working at Nike and half a decade with the Kansas City Chiefs.

"When Larry [Gottesdiener] talked about his vision for putting the resources in place to do this right, they had me," Shaw Parker said. "There's not another opportunity that I know of in men's or women's sports to really build something like this from scratch in a top 10 market."

Recruiting Shaw Parker to the Dream was the catalyst for a series of massive hires for the struggling franchise. Her impressive sports management experience and extensive relationships within the city's sports sphere lent an air of credibility to the Dream's rebuilding efforts - so much so that it helped lure the WNBA's reigning top executive into the fold.

"When Dan [Padover] saw that they had signed me, he talks a lot about the fact that he knew they were serious and they were building something very different," Shaw Parker said. "And they really have."

But before Padover officially signed on, Atlanta recruited one of his closest allies within the Aces organization. Wright, formerly an assistant coach under Las Vegas' Bill Laimbeer and a player in the league, joined the Dream as its new head coach.

Padover had previously insisted "that he wouldn't choose anyone else for his head coach if he were to make the decision," Shaw Parker said. Hiring Wright was enough to seal the deal with Padover as well.

"Hiring Morgan [Shaw Parker], a premier executive in the NFL space, was a pretty big eye-opener for me," Padover told Insider. "So I think them going after Morgan then going after Tanisha [Wright] - it was very impressive."

Though Padover had found incredible success building upon Laimbeer's framework with the Aces, he was drawn to the unique opportunity Atlanta represented. Not only will he have the chance to work alongside some of the best in the business, but he'll be the chief architect tasked with designing a team from scratch.

"I've been in this league for a decade," Padover said. "I don't ever remember someone coming into a similar situation with this blank of a slate... [Gottesdiener] looked me in the eye and said, 'Dan, I want you to think of this as an expansion franchise. We have nothing at the moment, but we're going to build this thing, and we're going to build it with great people.' And that really started to get my wheels turning."

"If you have a dream to be a lead of a professional basketball organization since you're a kid like I have, this incorporates all those things," he added. "It's building a roster from the ground up through the draft and through free agency. It's building a staff out, looking at facilities. It's all of the above, which for someone like myself is the dream."

Alongside Taylor - who has long dreamed of working in a front office and "can really help us bridge the gap between player and the basketball operation side, as well as the business side," according to Shaw Parker - Padover will begin to build out the team's roster through the draft and free agency. With $836,241 to work with under the salary cap and hardly any player commitments for the future, the GM pair will have free reign to craft a team that matches ownership's ambitions.

"I can tell you that my vision is very aligned with ownership," Shaw Parker said. "Renee [Montgomery], Larry [Gottesdiener], and Suzanne [Abair] have all voiced the same vision, and this is to build the best franchise in the WNBA and to really build a model franchise - not only for the WNBA but honestly, one in all of sports."

Building a team Atlanta can be proud of - and 'building trust with the fans and with the city itself' - starts now

It's no secret that "this was a tumultuous season for the Dream," as Abair herself admits. Despite the plethora of hardships that came with purchasing a franchise six weeks before the start of the season - she warns others considering following suit to "buckle up because it's going to be a tough ride" - Abair and her co-owners were always focused on the upside and the opportunity Atlanta's WNBA franchise presents.

The team realizing all of that potential starts with regaining fans' trust and winning over the city.

"We really aim to serve the community that we seek to be a part of, and that's going to take a lot of work on our part," Shaw Parker said. "I can tell you that ownership, as well as the leadership team, we are committed to building that for Atlanta and together with Atlanta."

"I ask for Atlanta's trust, and I ask for their support as we figure out how to do this the right way," she added.

For Padover, building a winning team starts with establishing a winning culture. He and Taylor will be "very mindful of the players we bring in" to ensure that "they have the same mindset on the court and off the court and are really looking at this, like, 'Hey, we're going to make Atlanta proud of the Dream."

"Our goal is to make you proud as fast as we possibly can," Padover says. "But we're not gonna rush it."

Abair knows that the city of Atlanta has done more than its fair share of waiting for positive results. She understands the frustration, and she's grateful that fans have stayed the course and offered "continued support." Success is on the horizon down in Georgia, she insists.

"Stay tuned, stay with us," Abair said. "This is day one of the new Atlanta Dream."