The Seattle Storm tip off their 27th season on Friday night (May 8) and things will look a lot different than last year. After two years of trying to build a contender around Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins, the team is rebuilding. Storm GM Talisa Rhea prefers to call it a “reset” but whatever language you use two things are true: 1) All five of their leading scorers from last year are gone and 2) There are a lot of exciting young players on the team right now. The timing may have been forced upon them by an aging core that underdelivered relative to expectations, but with multiple potential superstars scheduled to enter the WNBA in the next two college drafts, this is actually a great time to be losing games.
The centerpiece of the rebuild is Dominique Malonga, a 6’6” 20-year-old center from France who already looks the part of a WNBA star despite the fact that she’d be a college sophomore if she had been born in America. The Storm got her with the 2nd pick in last year’s draft (which they acquired in exchange for a disgruntled Jewell Loyd) and then brought her along slowly because they were trying their best to contend for a title. Even without a lot of minutes, though, by the end of the year she was going toe to toe with A’Ja Wilson and as a result the Storm damn near knocked off the eventual champion Las Vegas Aces in the first round of the playoffs. This year Dom will get all the minutes and all the “Storm Crazies” who populate Climate Pledge Arena will be eager to see how quickly her promise can turn into reality. And also how many times she dunks. (I’d put the over-under at several.)
The face of the rebuild may wind up being rookie Flau’jae Johnson, who came to the Storm in a tremendous piece of draft-day business. The Storm knew they needed to add to their guard room, but the top two guard prospects went 1-2 and thus were unavailable when the Storm picked at #3 overall. Rather than reach into the second tier of guards, the Storm took the best player available: a 19-year-old, 6’4” center from Spain named Awa Fam who’s been playing professionally for years and probably has the highest ceiling of anyone in this year’s draft. Yes, that’s extremely similar to Malonga’s story, but the details of their games are different enough that the Storm hope to be able to play them next to each other and potentially have a “twin towers” lineup that can terrorize the league’s frontcourts for many years.
Once they knew they weren’t going to get to draft Olivia Miles or Azzi Fudd at #3, the Storm started looking for a way to trade up in the draft and add a guard anyway. Golden State was worried about who would be left when it was their turn to pick at #8 and the Storm managed to negotiate a potential deal where they would send the first pick of the second round (#16 overall) and a future second rounder for it. We don’t know who Golden State was hoping would slide to them, but apparently it wasn’t Flau’jae Johnson (despite the fact that Johnson was appearing as high as #5 in various mock drafts). The teams agreed to the pick swap before Golden State turned in their selection and I can only imagine the giddiness in Talisa Rhea’s voice as she told Golden State to select Flau’jae Johnson on behalf of the Storm. Flau’jae is exactly what this Storm roster needed: a dynamic wing who can both drive and shoot the 3. She starred at LSU for 4 years and was a big part of the national title they won a few years ago (which you may remember as Angel Reese versus Caitlin Clark). She was “only” a 3rd-team All-American in her senior year, and a little bit of inconsistency (or possibly just failure to improve) likely contributed to her sliding a couple of spots in the draft, but for the price the Storm paid (two second round picks!) she seems like a tremendous value. In addition to her on-court potential, Flau’jae oozes charisma and immediately endears herself to everyone who has ever pointed a camera at her. She’s got a legitimate rap career going on the side, a ton of endorsements already, a smile you can see from the cheap seats, and has already claimed her spot in the starting lineup by leading the team in scoring during preseason.
It’s been an impressively quick pivot by the Storm. In addition to overhauling the roster, the team also parted ways with Noelle Quinn and brought in highly regarded Sonia Raman to be the new coach. After over a decade as the head coach at MIT, Raman was an assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies from 2020-2024 and spent last year as an assistant for the Liberty. Her NBA experience resembles the profile of several recent head coaching success stories, and if the Storm’s preseason media availability is anything to go by, the buzz around her as a coaching prospect is called for. The players spoke about her in glowing terms, and the vibes seem immaculate. The Storm wanted a culture reset and this team certainly appears to be having a lot more fun than last year’s team. There’s a good story behind pretty much every player on the roster – and I’ll have a roster breakdown on Thursday – but these are the highlights: a new coach and (with Ezi Magbegor injured to start the season) five new starters as well.
The dream scenario for this team is that 1) Flau’jae turns out to be the steal of the draft and makes a real run at Rookie of the Year (this isn’t even unrealistic as she’ll be one of just 3-ish rookies who will be starting from day 1), 2) Sonia Raman turns out to be a head coach capable of making her roster more than just the sum of its parts (again, very realistic), and 3) the twin towers experiment works out with Fam and Malonga surviving some inevitable growing pains to prove by the end of the season that they can play together effectively. If all that happens the Storm may find themselves in the mix for a playoff spot as the season winds down.
On the other hand, my fear is that the Storm will struggle with their point guard position. They signed two veteran free agents to cover this position (Natisha Hiedeman and Jade Melbourne), but neither was a starter last year and the Storm have been struggling a bit in preseason to feed the ball into the paint. If this weakness snowballs into a mediocre season for Malonga the Storm may wind up competing for the top pick in the draft instead of a playoff spot. Of course, this isn’t all bad as there are two potential star point guards likely to be in next year’s draft: JuJu Watkins (who will have the option to stay at USC for an additional year if she wants to since she missed a full year with an ACL tear) and Hannah Hidalgo.
Either way, this should be a fun team and a fun season, and I know I, for one, am looking forward to it. It’s unlikely to involve as many wins as the last two, but this season should ultimately be measured more by the progress the team makes and the way they are playing together at the end of it.
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