Season In Review: Seattle Storm


As a part of a WNBA.com offseason series, we’ll be taking a look at the seasons of all 12 teams in the league and touching on some of the top reasons to look forward to their 2016 WNBA campaigns.

The Seattle Storm may have missed the playoffs in 2015, but they were just a few games away from turning what was tabbed as a rebuilding year into a postseason journey. At 10-24, the Storm showed flashes of what’s to come in the first year under head coach Jenny Boucek.

The season started off rough. Seattle lost seven of its first 10 games and dug a hole that it struggled to crawl out of throughout the year. No. 1 overall draft pick Jewell Loyd wasn’t immediately effective, which wasn’t unexpected for a rookie who declared for the draft a year early, but it certainly had an impact on what they were able to do.

But she didn’t stay ineffective for long. Loyd found her footing in the WNBA and adjusted to the physicality and speed of the game. She quickly became one of the best rookies in the league and was a vital part of the Seattle offense led by WNBA legend Sue Bird.

Loyd averaged 9.4 points prior to the All-Star break, but she made a second half push and averaged 12.2 points per game after the All-Star break. For the season, Loyd was the second-leading scorer on the team (behind Crystal Langhorne) with a scoring average of 10.7. Oh, and she took home WNBA Rookie of the Year honors.

She wasn’t the only rookie who made a splash in Seattle, though. Japanese product Ramu Tokashiki transitioned to the WNBA game quickly and showed why she won four Japanese league MVP awards before coming stateside. Her performance earned her a spot on the WNBA All-Rookie team at season’s end.

And then there was Sue Bird. One of the greatest point guards to play the game, Bird embraced a mentoring and leadership role in 2015, fully aware of the rebuilding process at hand in Seattle. Bird was constantly feeding knowledge to the team’s crop of youth – Loyd, Tokashiki and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis.

She wasn’t all talk, either. Bird went out in her 13th season in the league and earned her ninth WNBA All-Star nod.

Around the middle of the season there seemed to be a glimmer of postseason hope for Seattle. Despite their record, they were in contention with the Los Angeles Sparks (among others) for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. They battled and stuck with plenty of teams, but they just couldn’t get enough momentum going to push them over the hump.

As fate would have it, missing out on the playoffs might have been the best thing for the franchise.

One of four lottery teams, all with their eyes on consensus No. 1 pick Breanna Stewart (Connecticut), Seattle entered with the most odds to take home the top pick. And that’s exactly what happened. Boucek and the Storm will have the opportunity to add a potential superstar to their team when the draft rolls around.

That addition should help jump-start the Storm’s rebuilding process – one that the front office has been open and honest about since last summer. Seattle is in the midst of a youth overhaul as they work to get back to their previously dominant ways. Adding Stewart to go along with Bird, Loyd and Co. would certainly help.

Reasons To Look Forward To 2016

Back-to-back No. 1 picks seems like reason enough to be intrigued by the Storm, but when you add in Bird, Tokashiki, Crystal Langhorne (leading scorer in 2015) and Seattle’s other young talent, they’re going to be an interesting team to watch in 2016.

The Western Conference is consistently a beast, so it’s likely that there will still be some struggles, but when you have a dynamic athlete like Loyd and potentially have a game-changing center, there’s reason for hope.