Where rebuilding Storm sit after a quarter of WNBA season | Analysis

After 11 games, first-year coach Sonia Raman has a better understanding of the Storm, who are a quarter of the way through the 44-game WNBA schedule.

"It's a togetherness, first of all, that we have," she said when asked to define the team's identity. "That really helps with the style of play that we want to have. You see it with how connected we are on the defensive end, and I think that connectedness that they have in the locker room, off the court, on the plane … you can really start to see it.

"They're going to work really hard. They're really hungry and they're really competitive. That's our identity. … This is a team that's got some grit and some resilience, and they are able to just keep coming back every day with that same kind of growth mindset of being hungry to get better."

The Storm's grit and resiliency will be challenged during a year that's already brought several predictable and unexpected challenges.

Here are five observations of the Storm, who start the second quarter of the season with a difficult two-game road trip that begins 10 a.m. Saturday against the Minnesota Lynx.

Help is on the way

Leading scorer and rebounder Dominique Malonga, who has missed the past eight games after entering the concussion protocol on May 14, resumed workouts this week and does not appear on the Storm's injury report for the first time in three weeks.

It's believed the Storm were being extra cautious with Malonga considering she suffered a head injury on March 12 while playing for the French national team during a FIBA World Cup qualifying match that forced her to miss the rest of the tournament.

The sooner Malonga gets back into the lineup, the sooner the Storm can get a look at pairing the 6-foot-6 center alongside highly touted 6-4 rookie Awa Fam, who tallied a season-high 18 points and six rebounds in her starting debut Wednesday.

In three games, two-year veteran Malonga was mostly sensational while scoring 21, six and 21 points in her first career starts. She shot 47.5% on field goals, including 2 of 5 from long range. Malonga also averaged 7.3 rebounds, 1.0 steals and 2.0 blocks.

At some point, the Storm must determine if their promising young stars are compatible, but it remains to be seen if Raman starts 20-year-old Malonga and 19-year-old Fam or initially brings one of them off the bench.

Presumably, seven-year veteran forward Ezi Magbegor will make a much-anticipated season debut this month that's been delayed by a foot injury.

Imagine a supersized front line featuring Magbegor, Malonga and Fam with rookie guard Flau'jae Johnson and Natisha Hiedeman in the backcourt.

"Once we get everybody back, we can hopefully get some games under our belt with all of them out there and see what we have," Raman said. "Until then, you still evaluate. We play a lot of games without a lot time in between for practice, so we have to get better and improve while playing games, which I think we're doing."

Defense appears to be elite

The Storm rank fourth in defensive rating (102.4) and points allowed at 81.3 per game. They're third in opponents' field goal percentage (41.1%) and first in opponents' three-point percentage (29.2%).

Thanks to Johnson and veteran center Stefanie Dolson, who average 1.4 and 1.1 blocks, respectively, the Storm are third in the league in blocks at 5.5 per game.

It remains to be seen how much Seattle's relatively soft schedule has led to its early defensive dominance. The Storm will be tested by the Lynx, who average 90.5 points, and Aces, who average 89.7 points, and rank second and third in scoring, respectively.

Offense is … not elite

The Storm are averaging just 75.6 points per game.

That's historically bad.

In the past four years, no WNBA team has averaged fewer than 75.8 points during a season.

In the past decade, the Storm averaged fewer than 75 points just once - in 2019.

This season, they rank last in the league in assists per game (16.8) and field goal percentage (40.3%), which makes it difficult to determine if the offense isn't working because players aren't creating shots for each other or missing open shots?

It's probably a little bit of both.

At any rate, if Raman can't squeeze more points from an anemic offensive attack, then it's going to be nearly impossible to win consistently - especially against good teams - considering scoring leaguewide is at an all-time high with teams averaging 84.8 points per game.

Historically slow start

The Storm are tied for their second worst start in franchise history at 3-8.

In its inaugural season in 2000, Seattle's WNBA team began 2-9 and finished 6-26 - the fewest wins in franchise history.

In 2015, the Storm were in Year 2 of a two-year rebuild with veteran superstar Sue Bird as the centerpiece. They started 3-8, finished 10-24 and netted the top pick in the WNBA draft to select Breanna Stewart, who led them to two league titles during her seven-year tenure.

When Bird retired and Stewart bolted via free agency, the Storm handed the reins to Jewell Loyd in 2023. Seattle stumbled to a 3-8 start and finished 11-29 in an otherwise forgettable season aside from Loyd's league-leading 24.7 points per game and a breakout season for Magbegor, who made her only All-Star appearance.

If history is a guide, then there's little reason to believe the Storm will finish any better this year than they did in 2015 and '23.

Rocky road ahead

Let's be real, making the playoffs was always going to be extremely difficult for a young Storm team that hit the reset button in the offseason, lost its top five scorers from last year and was predicted to finish near the bottom of the standings.

So, it's not surprising the Storm are riding a four-game losing streak, tied for 13th in the league and last in the Western Conference Commissioner's Cup race at 0-2.

Seattle beat the Connecticut Sun (2-9) twice and its other win was against the Washington Mystics (4-4).

The combined record of the Storm's past five opponents is 20-29, which included just one team with a winning record. Meanwhile, the combined record of their next five opponents is 30-19 and includes just one team with a losing record.

Here's a look at the next five games: at Minnesota Lynx (8-2); at Las Vegas Aces (6-3) on Monday; Los Angeles (4-5) on Wednesday; Golden State (6-4) and June 12 and at Portland (6-5) on June 17.

Note

The Storm waived forward Joyner Holmes, who signed a hardship contract May 22. She appeared in one game while scoring two points in 15 minutes. The move is another indication Malonga is ready resume playing.

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