What to watch for as Seattle Storm open 2025 WNBA training camp

Now that the dust has settled on a turbulent and transformative offseason, the Storm officially begin Year 26 in the WNBA on Sunday.

Due to the league’s relatively condensed training camp schedule, fifth-year coach Noelle Quinn has just three weeks, roughly 14 practices, one home preseason game and one road scrimmage before the May 17 regular-season opener.

There are 16 players on the Storm’s training-camp roster including returning starters Nneka Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Ezi Magbegor and Gabby Williams.

Otherwise, it’s a complete overhaul from last year’s team that finished fifth in the standings with a 25-15 record and was swept 0-2 in the first round of the playoffs.

The Storm brought back veteran forward Alysha Clark, who won 2018 and 2020 WNBA championships in Seattle, sharpshooting wing Katie Lou Samuelson, who played in Seattle in 2021, and rookie forward Mackenzie Holmes, the team’s third-round pick in 2024 who missed the season due to a knee injury.

In free agency, the Storm signed guards Lexie Brown, Erica Wheeler and Zia Cooke and forward Brianna Fraser, and acquired Li Yueru in a blockbuster trade that shipped away six-time All-Star Jewell Loyd.

The Storm also assembled a draft class highlighted by No. 2 overall pick Dominique Malonga and included third-round picks Serena Sundell, Madison Conner and Jordan Hobbs.

Forward Jordan Horston and guard Nika Mühl are inactive this season due to knee injuries.

Here’s a look at three questions the Storm must answer during training camp.

How does Malonga fit?

The 6-foot-6, 19-year-old center is arguably the most intriguing WNBA rookie partly because she spent the past four years playing professionally in France in relative anonymity.

In recent months, Malonga became a viral sensation after she dunked with ease during a game.

The Storm didn’t necessarily need a post player in the draft, but they couldn’t pass on a teenage prospect with a rare skill set of athleticism, ball handling and shooting prowess.

Still, it’s going to be interesting to see how Quinn incorporates Malonga in a veteran lineup that includes nine-time All-Star Ogwumike and 2023 All-Star Magbegor on the front line.

It’s no easy task developing a post prodigy while making possibly one last run at a championship with future Hall of Famer Ogwumike and veteran standout Diggins-Smith, who are free agents in 2026.

Can anyone shoot?

This is going to be a nagging question until the Storm prove they’ve sufficiently fixed a broken perimeter offense that made the wrong type of history after shooting a franchise-worst 28.8% on three-pointers last season.

Only 13 teams in WNBA history had a lower shooting percentage from deep.

Even with Ogwumike shooting 40.5% and Williams converting a career-high 32.2% on three-pointers, the Storm ranked last in the league in long-range accuracy.

It remains to be seen how losing Loyd, the team’s leading scorer, impacts the Storm’s offense. Last season, she shot 27.4% from outside — the second-lowest clip in her career — while attempting 215 three-point attempts, which ranked 13^th in the WNBA.

It’s also uncertain how newcomers Clark, Brown, Samuelson and Wheeler — who each have shot better than 32% on three-pointers during their careers — will help rectify the Storm’s shooting woes.

What’s their identity?

Admittedly, the Storm wrestled with this question for too long last year after bringing in high-profile free-agent pickups Ogwumike and Diggins-Smith and attempting to incorporate late-arriving Williams in July.

Following the Olympic break, the offense was in disarray during the final weeks of the season, which led to an embarrassing fourth-quarter meltdown in Game 1 of the playoffs.

After a season-ending 83-76 loss to the Las Vegas Aces, a few Storm players questioned if everyone was on the same page in terms of the schemes and commitment.

Seemingly, Quinn, who has a 3-6 postseason record with the Storm, is under more pressure than ever before to make a deep playoff run. She has to establish a pecking order among the starters and reserves, find Loyd’s replacement and ultimately decide who fills out what’s expected to be an 11-player roster.

During the offseason, Storm owners supported Quinn when Loyd lobbed accusations of player harassment and bullying by the coaching staff. Those claims were not supported by an independent investigation.

Seemingly, this is a make-or-break year for the Storm considering Brown, Malonga, Yueru, Cooke and Fraser are the only active players under contract next season.