This week, the Seattle Storm of the WNBA shocked the league by going on a five-game losing run, dropping from a top-5 club to one vying for a postseason berth.
It has been stunning to watch a team with so much skill on paper struggle to win games, and the Storm had been inconsistent throughout the season before the last week and a half.
To solve their problems, they made various adjustments last week before the WNBA Trade Deadline on August 7. In exchange for Alysha Clark, Zia Cooke, and their 2026 first-round draft pick, they acquired WNBA All-Star Brittney Sykes from the Washington Mystics.
Clark was the one who requested the trade out of Seattle, according to stories that have surfaced days after the move was finalized.
The 38-year-old veteran first stated that she wanted to take charge of her career because her return to the team she won a championship with in 2020 had not gone as planned.
Additionally, Clark informed Kareem Copeland, the beat writer for the Mystics, that she valued the Storm’s cooperation and wanted to make sure she was doing what she was happy and comfortable with at this point in her career. She is settling in after arriving in Washington.
More questions are raised, though, by the second piece of the news that was reported this afternoon. According to several sources, there have been “verbal altercations” in the Storm locker room. According to a different reporter, this one from Seattle.
Reports from Seattle during the 2024 WNBA season sound a little bit like this. Disputes amongst staff members, altercations in the locker room, and Jewell Loyd’s eventual trade request. Are the same issues resurfacing? Or has the Storm had two consecutive bad, unconnected breaks?
After hovering around the 4/5 area for weeks, the Seattle Storm have fallen to 8th place in the league. The Storm still has a chance to move up in the rankings since they are so close, with just two games separating eighth place from fifth, and particularly considering some of the recent injury luck that other teams have had.
This week, Seattle will play the Atlanta Dream in two crucial games: one at home and one in Vancouver, British Columbia. Seattle’s standing would significantly improve if it won one or both of these games, especially since Atlanta is playing so well.
They run the danger of losing home-court advantage or, worse, their playoff place if the run isn’t broken quickly. However, it’s also a fact that they can face more serious issues if these off-court tendencies persist.
READ MORE: LAD REPORTING
