By Rowan Schaberg, edited by Charles Hamaker

Seattle, WA - “I’m in heaven,” Seattle Storm head coach Noelle Quinn remarked about the depth of her roster this season following a 90-87 win over the Los Angeles Sparks at Climate Pledge Arena last night. The work that she and general manager Talisa Rhea put in during the off-season has clearly paid off, as the Storm are currently fighting for the No. 4 seed in the 2024 WNBA playoffs after failing to clinch a berth last season for the first time since 2015. This turnaround can undoubtedly be attributed to the headliners of last night’s win over the Sparks, all members of this 2024 squad as a result of hard work in the franchise’s front office. Free agent acquisitions Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith tallied 23 and 19 points, respectively, while mid-season returner Gabby Williams added 22 points, and 2023 WNBA Draft steal Jordan Horston contributed 16 points to the team win.

Four players, including one bench player, combining for 59 of Seattle’s 90 points last night is a far cry from Seattle’s offensive identity (or lack thereof) in 2023. Last season, the Storm averaged just 78.8 points per game (the second lowest in the league), despite their leading scorer, Jewell Loyd, averaging a whopping 24.7 points per game and breaking the league’s single season scoring record (which was broken again by Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson earlier this week). Seattle’s other 2023 WNBA All-Star, Ezi Magbegor, averaged 13.8 points per game last season, the most of her career thus far. With the scoring averages of Loyd and Magbegor combined totaling half of Seattle’s 78.8 points per game average, it is clear that there wasn’t much going on for the Storm offensively in 2023 outside of their all-stars. This made last night’s matchup all the more intriguing, as Loyd and Magbegor were both out with a knee injury and concussion, respectively - the first time in their four seasons together in which both players were injured at the same time. 

Simultaneous injuries for these two players would have been catastrophic for Seattle last season, but Quinn has no reason to panic now. Loyd still leads the team in scoring this season, but the second leading scorer, Ogwumike, is only three points behind, with Diggins-Smith one point shy of her. In just ten games since rejoining the team, Williams is averaging ten points per game - the most of her career. It’s no secret that Williams, now an Olympic silver medalist, can be extremely successful offensively depending on the needs of her team, averaging 15.5 points for France in the 2024 Paris games and 19.9 points for Lyon during the WNBA off-season. Quinn has made it clear that in Seattle, Williams’ role is as a “French Army Knife”, stuffing the stat sheet with steals, assists, rebounds, and blocks, using her athletic ability on defense and play-making ability on offense, with scoring as just the icing on the cake. Williams’ ability to score a season-high 22 points while also recording a season-high four steals and just one rebound short of tying her season high in that category proves how vital she is to the success of this Storm team, being able to pick up the offensive slack without Loyd and Magbegor while continuing to stay efficient in every other stat column. 

As Quinn mentioned, the depth of the Storm’s roster addresses an ongoing concern from last season: closing out close games. In 2023, Seattle went just 2-7 in games with a five-point or less scoring margin, often relying on Loyd to hurl the ball from behind the arc in a final attempt to win the game. This season, however, Seattle has improved to 4-5 in games with a scoring margin of five points or less. Three of these four down-to-the-wire wins have been in the last three weeks, with Seattle pulling out a four-point win over Atlanta on Aug. 28, a two-point edge over Dallas on Friday, and a three-point victory over LA last night. Quinn attributes this improvement to the number of options that Seattle now has for offensive playmaking in late-game situations and, of course, their defensive strengths (because it wouldn’t be a Noelle Quinn quote without a mention of defense!). While possibly alarming that games against teams such as the Sparks and the Wings, who are both out of playoff contention, are getting down to the wire, it should overall be a good sign for Quinn’s staff that their squad can come up big in these close late-game situations. 

Overall, the absence of Loyd and Magbegor in a low-stakes game against a team that is already out of playoff contention was oddly the perfect way of gauging just how impactful Seattle’s front office moves have been for constructing a winning roster that has taken the Storm back to the WNBA Playoffs. 

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