On Sunday, the Seattle Storm announced that the team would not be renewing head coach Noelle Quinn's contract, ending her tenure with the franchise. Quinn spent most of five seasons as the Storm head coach after taking over in 2021 after Dan Hughes retired six games into the season.
Seattle made the playoffs in four of Quinn's five seasons, but after the team just barely backed into the postseason in 2025 and suffered a second consecutive first-round exit despite the team's efforts to bring in top veteran talent, it became clear that it was time for a change in Seattle.
But what will that change be? Who could take over for Quinn and actually get this team to the next level? Here are five candidates that Seattle should have on its short list.
Rebekkah Brunson
Want to win a title? Then let's start with someone who has championship experience as a player and who has also coached under a championship-winning head coach.
Rebekkah Brunson won five titles in her 15-year WNBA career, including four as a player for the Lynx. A seven-time selection to one of the WNBA All-Defensive teams, Brunson moved into an assistant coaching role with the franchise in 2020.
Brunson has learned from Cheryl Reeve, arguably the WNBA GOAT head coach, for years now. Assuming she isn't just waiting around in Minnesota to replace Reeve in a few years, Seattle should make a call here. Brunson could help reshape the defense.
Kristi Toliver
Kristi Toliver is going to be a head coach soon. The only question is if that's in the WNBA or the college ranks.
Toliver played in the WNBA as recently as 2023, but her coaching career actually began back in 2018, when she was hired as an assistant coach for the NBA's Washington Wizards while she played for the Mystics. In 2021, she left Washington to sign as a player with the Sparks, but her offseason coaching commitment remained, this time with the Dallas Mavericks.
Toliver's move in 2024 to be the associate head coach of the Phoenix Mercury showed that those NBA opportunities were a stepping stone to something larger on the women's side. The moment that she no longer played in the league and could legally make the move to the WNBA coaching ranks, she did. All that's left is for Toliver to get her first head coaching look.
LaToya Sanders
After a solid playing career, LaToya Sanders was hired in 2021 as an assistant coach for the Washington Mystics. After four years there, she moved to Atlanta as an assistant this season. Could it be time for Sanders to make a move to an even larger role?
This might seem a bit riskier than the other former players on this list, but just because Sanders doesn't get talked about a ton doesn't mean she can't be a very good head coach.
Sanders would also be a great mentor for Dominique Malonga. Her experience as a WNBA big could be huge for helping mold Malonga into a top-tier player in this league.
Katie Smith
Katie Smith's first shot at a WNBA head coaching job didn't go well, but she was in a pretty impossible position during the switchover in ownership for the Liberty, which led to her team playing home games all the way out in Westchester, which led to a lot of struggles for that team to find its identity. She was also stuck between two competing things as far as the roster build went: a star veteran in Tina Charles who was surrounded by what otherwise felt like a young, rebuilding team.
Don't let the 25 percent winning percentage turn you off, though. Smith spent five seasons in Minnesota following her departure from New York, including three seasons as associate head coach, before moving on to take an assistant coaching position at Ohio State in 2024. Could she be itching to get back to the pro game?
Kara Lawson
You don't see a ton of big-name college coaches take the jump to the WNBA. I'm sure money plays a big role in that — South Carolina, for example, can give Dawn Staley way more money than a WNBA team would be able to. Of the seven new coaches hired last year, just two came from the college ranks, and Utah's Lynne Roberts and FGCU's Karl Smesko weren't household names.
But Kara Lawson kind of seems like someone who could make the jump, right? She has WNBA playing experience. Her Duke teams have been good, but not good enough to be title threats, something that seems like it might make her more willing to leave, since she isn't at a program that's a perennial championship contender.
Is it a long shot? Probably. Getting an ACC head coach to leave for a WNBA job might be difficult, but this is one that Seattle should try very hard for, even if Duke has the money to rebuff Seattle's efforts.