Storm Week 13 & 14: The Journey Home

The Storm have dropped all five of their games since the All Star break and are currently on an 11-game losing streak. While none of those 11 games have been blowouts, and nine of them have been against playoff teams; the net result is that the Storm are officially the first team eliminated from playoff contention this season. The Storm have six games left before the league takes a couple of weeks off for the FIBA World Cup. 5 of those are against non-playoff teams, so hopefully the Storm can end this losing streak and put up a couple of W’s.

The Players

While the team has not looked good, individual players continue to show signs of improvement. I criticized Dom in my mid-season report card for only shooting 46.8% from the field and while I doubt she’s a Rain City Rebound reader, she has been talking in press availabilities about how she’s focusing on being more efficient. Well, it’s working. Her worst shooting performance since the All Star Break is 50% against a Portland team that packed the paint all night and dared the Storm to shoot 3-pointers. She’s averaging 64% while putting up 21 & 9.

Jade Melbourne has also looked good in the last few games. She went for 13 points and 7 assists against the Liberty and then followed it up with a career high 23 points and 5 assists against Portland. Portland’s game plan was basically to dare her to shoot, but to Jade’s credit, she was able to punish them for that, hitting 4 3-pointers in 12 tries.

There’s a big difference between a point guard who shoots 33% from range and one who shoots 26%, which is Jade’s season average. Sure they were wide-open looks, but this is still a good sign. I agree with what Jeff Brown from Storm Chasers said, which is that no one on the Storm has more on the line between now and the end of the season than Jade. She’s on a 1-year “prove it” contract and now has 10 games left to make her case.

Ezi Magbegor has moved into the starting lineup for the last 3 games. Ezi is the team’s highest-paid player, but missed most of the season with a foot injury before breaking her nose after just a couple of games back. Now she’s playing with a mask to protect her nose and hasn’t really had a chance to get comfortable, but played probably her best game of the season on Saturday against Portland. She had a couple of nice blocks as well as 6 assists and a steal to go with 7 points. 

The one downside of Ezi starting is that Awa Fam has moved to the bench. This wouldn’t necessarily be a huge problem, but in practice this move has meant just 19 minutes per game for Awa whereas she had been playing 30 minutes a game for the previous two months. It’s not like Awa was struggling. I think she’s been actively good—11-6-2 averages has her on track for a spot on the all-rookie team—but in Ezi’s 3 starts, that’s down to 7-5-1. I can understand wanting to get Ezi going for several reasons: First, find out how good the team/rotation works with her as a major piece of it. Second, restore her trade value in case you don’t love what you see in #1. Third, help her prepare for the upcoming World Cup. 

But what I do not understand is continuing to give 10 minutes per game to Stephanie Dolson. Dolson is old, bad at defense, doesn’t rebound, doesn’t score, and is not under contract after this season. She doesn’t help us win now and isn’t part of the future. Every minute she plays is a missed opportunity to let Awa continue to develop. Honestly, even if we didn’t have Awa in need of more minutes, I’d rather see 25-year old Mackenzie Holmes, who we can keep for next year on a minimum contract, get some run instead of Dolson. 

Injury Updates

Katie Lou Samuelson left the second Liberty game with a knee injury. It’s the same knee that caused her to miss last season with an ACL tear, so there was reason for apprehension. She was initially listed as questionable for the Portland game before ultimately being ruled out. The fact she was initially questionable seems like a really good sign that this won’t be a long-term injury. Meanwhile, not having KLS meant more minutes for Jordan Horston, who took advantage of Portland’s pack-the-paint defensive strategy by hitting 4 of 6 from deep as part of her 17 total points and team-high +13 (in a game they lost by 7). No KLS also lead the team to activate developmental player Taina Mair, who scored 5 points in 5 first-half minutes.

Flau’jae Johnson rolled her ankle against Portland badly enough that she needed help to get off the court, but she came back in the fourth quarter and tried to play on it anyway. Unfortunately, she seemed to tweak it a second time and needed help again. I haven’t seen an update on her availability yet, but she was in enough visible pain that I would not be surprised if she misses a game or two.

Next Week

All 3 Storm games look winnable this week. The team will be at home for all three and they play Chicago twice plus Portland.

Betting markets actually had the Storm favored by 1.5 points for last week’s road game at Portland, so they will certainly be favored in Climate Pledge. Portland does have 7 more wins than Seattle this season, but it’s only because they have won most of their clutch games while the Storm have lost all but 1 of theirs. Meanwhile Chicago has looked decent lately but still sits at just 12-20 after an inconsistent season caused by injury woes.