PORTLAND, Ore. -- Bridget Carleton always liked algebra class growing up.
Solving for X, the unknown variable, never felt like a task. She liked how there was always an answer with a clear solution.
Going through all of the different scenarios to find X stimulated her brain. Even though she aspired to be a professional basketball player, she never questioned how she would use mathematical equations in real life.
Now in her eighth season in the WNBA and first with the Portland Fire , one of the league's expansion franchises this year, almost every day for Carleton is reminiscent of those eighth-grade math classes. The Fire organization is centered on a training concept called the Constraints-Led Approach, or CLA, in which first-year head coach Alex Sarama is a leading expert.
At its core, CLA is about practicing with more variability. It's knowing the shot you are supposed to take, but with different obstacles in the way -- how you get there is unknown, like solving for X.
"In basketball, there is always an answer," Carleton said. "Maybe there's not just one right answer, but there is an answer.
So how do I put myself in the position to find the solution?" Instead of traditional training, in which an athlete learns and repeats the same movement multiple times in a structured drill, CLA is built around game-like situations and features different rules -- or constraints -- that force athletes to make adjustments. A constraint can range from the size of the ball the players practice with to the number of steps they are allowed to take to how much time they have to get off a shot.
"It's a boundary," Sarama said. "We want to create very specific boundaries in the activities, and that's how they'll become more skillful." CLA training in sports has been around for decades, though it's more popular in Europe, particularly in soccer and rugby.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have adopted the method in the past few years. Kelsey Plum , the Los Angeles Sparks guard who ranked second in the WNBA in scoring before an injury last month, and Victor Wembanyama , who led the San Antonio Spurs to the NBA Finals, have incorporated it into their training.
What sets the Fire apart is that everything they do is rooted in the Constraints-Led Approach, from practice sessions to rotation patterns to their rest and recovery. Over two months into its inaugural season, Portland has already won double-digit games, and though the Fire currently sit three games out of a playoff spot, everyone around the franchise believes CLA is exactly what the team needs to make its mark in the WNBA.
"To do something special, you have to make a bold start and make sure players are developing," Sarama said. "That's why I think [CLA] is so perfect here." SARAH ASHLEE BARKER grabbed an offensive rebound against the New York Liberty and darted to the far corner.
With a defender closing quickly, the Portland guard turned and launched a 3-pointer. She was off balance and her body was still partially facing the baseline instead of the basket.
"I would never have thought to take that shot before in my life, but all of a sudden it was second nature," Barker told ESPN. "I was coming down the floor just screaming 'CLA, CLA, CLA.'" One of Sarama's main goals in his CLA training is to make games feel easier than practices.
So he throws what can feel like unsolvable constraints into all of his drills. For example, when the Fire work on finishing around the rim, Sarama instructs the players to finish high off of the glass -- as if shooting over someone of Wembynama's 7-foot-4 height -- but the players' shooting hand can't go above their nose, and they have to finish off of two feet.
In shooting drills, players will start by taking a standstill shot, but the next one is attempted fading to the right, then backpedaling into it, then peeling out. Sarama sometimes makes the players twirl and then release their shot, or have a defender close out with no warning.
They practice shooting with five balls -- the standard WNBA size, the NBA size, the 3-on-3 ball (which is the size of a WNBA ball but heavier), a slippery ball and a small ball. All of this is built on CLA's principle that there is no such thing as muscle memory because in basketball, players will never get the same shot or look twice.
Instead, they need to be able to adjust to any situation. "That way, when we're confronted by particular situations, it's easier because we are more adaptable," Sarama said.
"If you've only practiced