The Seattle Storm were always supposed to make the playoffs. They have four All-Stars—Nneka Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins, and Gabby Williams, who have been with the team all season long, and Brittney Sykes, who was acquired at the trade deadline. A team with that much star power shouldn’t miss the postseason, even if the supporting cast isn’t as strong as those of the top contenders.
The Storm’s 22-20 record that has them sitting in eighth place—only 1.5 games ahead of the Los Angeles Sparks—is underwhelming at best. After getting off to a solid start and beating Minnesota and New York in June, Seattle has fallen off. A six-game losing streak in early August hurt the Storm’s position in the standings, and even winning five of their last six games in August didn’t help it.
Seattle still doesn’t have a playoff spot locked down, and time is not on its side. After a tough 91-85 loss to the Sparks, Nneka Ogwumike put the Storm’s harsh reality into words.
“There’s only two games left, so there’s no option but to win both of them,” Ogwumike said in the postgame press conference. After that losing streak in August, it seemed unavoidable that the Storm would enter the final stretch of the season with a lot of pressure to win. That pressure is especially intense now that the Storm lost another game and the regular season is almost over.
There is little separation between the teams in the bottom half of the playoff race
Four teams have clinched a playoff spot so far: the Lynx, Aces, Dream, and Mercury. New York hasn’t done so yet but has a 2.5-game advantage over the six-seeded Valkyries.
The bottom half of the playoff race is still incredibly close. The Valkyries only have a 0.5 game advantage over the Fever and Storm, and the Sparks are only 1.5 games behind the Storm and Fever, still eying one of the final playoff spots.
With only two games left compared to the Sparks’ remaining five contests, the Storm cannot afford any more defeats if they want to avoid risking a disappointing end to the regular season. Not only are the Sparks relatively close to the Storm in the standings, but they also hold the tiebreaker. The two teams met four times, and LA won three of the matchups.
The Sparks’ remaining schedule could work in the Storm’s favor, however. LA still has to face Atlanta twice, and Phoenix and Las Vegas once each. Moreover, Seattle isn’t the only team that could fall out of the playoff race in favor of the Sparks. Indiana also only has a 1.5-game advantage over LA and is playing without Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham, Aari McDonald, and Sydney Colson.
The draft should offer the Storm extra motivation
There are plenty of reasons why the Storm should want to make the playoffs over the Sparks. One of them is the 2026 WNBA Draft. In 2024, the Storm acquired the Sparks’ 2026 first-round pick in exchange for Kia Nurse and the Storm’s first-round pick in 2024.
If the Sparks miss the playoffs, the Storm will get their lottery pick, which would give them a second consecutive lottery pick without having to miss the playoffs. The Storm already landed the Sparks’ lottery pick in this year’s draft in the trade that moved Jewell Loyd and Kelsey Plum and used it to select Dominique Malonga.