The Storm may have entered the playoffs as the second-lowest seed, but a 102-77 loss to the Las Vegas Aces still wasn’t a good look for a team featuring Nneka Ogwumike, Gabby Williams, Skylar Diggins, Ezi Magbegor, and Brittney Sykes. Las Vegas dominated every aspect of the game, and, unless the Storm manage to make some major changes, Game 2 might not go much differently.
If the Storm don’t make it past the first round, it would be the second consecutive year of little playoff success despite having a star-studded roster. Last season, the Storm’s roster featured Jewell Loyd, Nneka Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins, Ezi Magbegor, and Gabby Williams. Nevertheless, they were swept in the first round by the Aces. This year’s roster is very similar and looks like it’s headed for the same fate.
If that is how the Storm’s season ends, Noelle Quinn may quickly find herself on the hot seat.
The Storm haven’t found much playoff success recently
Noelle Quinn played in the WNBA for 12 seasons. Once she retired, she switched to coaching and is now the only Black woman to work as a head coach in the WNBA—a league primarily made up of Black women.
Quinn started her coaching career with the Seattle Storm in 2019 as an assistant. A year later, she became associate head coach and took over as the sole head coach in 2021. Since then, the Storm finished with a winning record in four out of five seasons. However, they never made it past the second round of the playoffs in the three years they made it to the postseason. A team with as much veteran star power as the Storm shouldn’t be satisfied with that—or a crushing defeat in the playoffs after barely even making the postseason, for that matter.
A six-game losing streak in August caused the Storm to drop in the standings—a drop off they never quite managed to recover from—but many of Seattle’s issues existed well before that. They finished the regular season eighth in offensive rating and seventh in net rating after some up-and-down performances. The Storm beat Minnesota, Las Vegas, Phoenix, New York, and Atlanta during the regular season, but then failed to take care of business against the Sparks, Mystics, Fever, Sun, and Wings.
If the Storm fail to find any playoff success this year, some major changes may be coming. The only players currently under contract with the Storm after this season are Lexie Brown, Dominique Malonga, Jordan Houston, and Nike Mühl. That leaves room for significant roster changes.
However, the roster isn’t the only part of the team that might undergo some changes. The Storm may also consider replacing Noelle Quinn with a new head coach. After a few years, it may simply be time for a change and there will be plenty of chances for Quinn to coach elsewhere with several expansion teams coming into the league.