How Kelly Loeffler’s politics made her a WNBA villain

Before she became the archenemy of her own basketball team, Kelly Loeffler, Republican senator and co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, loved talking about zone defense.

It started early in Michael Cooper’s first season as head coach of the Dream, in 2014. Loeffler, a senior executive at a Fortune 500 company, traveled often, but she would plan her work trips around the Dream’s schedule, a former team CEO said, locking it into her calendar to avoid missing a single game.