Hello Storm Enjoyers!
Welcome back to another season of Cloud Somethings, the one and only Seattle Storm based substack written by me (if there is some Moon Knight-like alternate personality lurking inside me who is also writing a Seattle Storm substack, please read this whenever you take over my body and leave me a note or a link!)! Before we get too far into what will certainly be a meandering and overly long post I’d like to apologize for the truncated nature of last year’s coverage, I went on a long road trip and the Olympics happened and the combo of those things erased the time and desire to continue writing about the back half of the season. This is not to say that I participated in the Olympics (though I do think I’d look awesome holding a javelin), I’m just saying that the long break really robbed me of my writing momentum, much like it robbed the Storm’s season of its momentum and probably is the reason why they stunk so much in the second half.
When we last saw our beloved Storm they were short handed but nearly beating the eventual Western Conference champion Phoenix Mercury in a very dumb one game playoff. Breanna Stewart was on the sidelines with what we would find out was an achilles tear and nearly all of the team was exhausted from a stupid long season in which over half the roster participated in the Olympics and the entire roster played an extra game. That game was the inaugural Commissioner’s Cup championship game that snagged the team one very fake looking trophy (blech) but also some very real money (cool). I would for sure say the season was a real disappointment! Honestly any season where the Storm have the Sue Bird/Jewel Loyd/Breanna Stewart trio on their roster and fail to make the finals is going to be a disappointment. Will this season be a disappointment? I don’t know! I fudging hope not! Will I ever be able to spell disappointment without the help of spell check despite the fact that I’ve now used it four times in this paragraph? Definitely not!
This offseason the Storm mostly nibbled around the edges of their roster, again when you have that Big Three (a tired term that should be replaced with some sort of specific nickname that I cannot figure out right now. BBL? GROSS. BirStewEl? Unwieldy. The Three Horsewomen of the Apocolypse? Closer, but no.) you don’t need to do too much. They jettisoned the up and down Katie Lou Samuelson (who authored of my least favorite moment of the Storm season by completely falling asleep on defense, a moment only magnified because I was actually at that game and saw it unfold in front of me) in favor of the heretofore unknown in the WNBA but certainly kick-ass in Europe Gabby Williams. They also lost Jordin Canada and her mix of exciting drives and non-existant outside shooting and replaced her with the more veteran and able to shoot a three every now and then Briann January. It seems at this hour that the ever spinning who-will-back-up-Sue-Bird wheel has landed on rookie third round pick Evina Westbrook. Though I suspect most of the non-Bird ballhadling will be done by some combination of Jewel, January, and the still dope as hell Epiphanny Prince. They also added Jantel Lavender who is tall and used to play in Indiana and that is all I know about her right now! I could give you more info on how this might all work out if the WNBA showed or had highlights from the second of the two Storm preseason games but they didn’t so I don’t. Overall I think the Storm front office is banking on a team that was rolling through the first half of the season not being exhausted, discombobulated, and injured by a jingoistic if someone cool intense tournament in the middle of said season.
Now what kind of questions do I have for the Storm this season? Welllllllllllllllllllllll, I still wonder where secondary shot creation will come from when one of Stewie or Jewel is on the bench AND if this team has enough three point shooting to keep the lane from being clogged on every damn possession. I’m also curious if the possibility of this being the last season for both Sue (she’s certainly retiring after this year) and Stewie (see what I hope was just the tempest in a teapot story of the offseason) in green and gold will be a distraction or catalyst when they hit the floor and start hoopin’. PLUS is this the year that everyone’s favorite developmental prospect, Ezi Magbegor, finally starts to put it all together? An affirmative answer would probably also solve questions one and two up above. This roster right now is definitely still in the mix for a title and only the games will tell and I cannot wait to start watching them (unless of course the Storm’s deal with the evil corporation Amazon somehow screws up league pass and I actually can’t watch any of their games without getting a prime membership, something I swore I’d never do) AND I CAN’T WAIT TO START FILLING YOUR INBOXES WITH MY GARBAGGIO THOUGHTS ABOUT IT! WELCOME TO THE NEW SEASON AND #TAKECOVER (I wish they had a better hashtag than that)!