The Seattle Storm enter 2025 in a strange space after trading away one of the best players in franchise history, Jewell Loyd.
The talent is here for Seattle to make a WNBA title run, but at the same time, uncertainty about how the talent all fits together could see the team struggle to jell and wind up falling out of the top four seeds, sending Seattle on the road to start the playoffs.
Here are three key questions for the Seattle Storm in 2025.
How does the team replace Jewell Loyd?
I don't have a source to back this up, but I think it would be fair to say that when the Storm originally dealt Jewell Loyd to the Aces in a deal that landed them the No. 2 overall pick, they saw that as a way to replace Loyd with Olivia Miles.
Then Miles went back to college and now the team has a major question: how do you replace one of the league's best volume scorers?
Obviously, the presence of Skylar Diggins and Nneka Ogwumike helps, because both are capable of being lead scorers still, but the big name for the Storm who'll need to step up with Loyd gone — and with Jordan Horston out for the season because of injury — is Gabby Williams.
Williams, who plays internationally for France, has been in and out of the league because of her commitments there, but she looked good in her 12-game stint after the Olympics last year. Williams averaged 10.3 points per game on 48.1 percent shooting. Efficiency was an issue earlier in her career, but the same sample last year suggested that Williams may have figured that part of her game out.
Is Dominque Malonga ready for the league?
The WNBA put out its annual GM survey on Thursday and there were some interesting results involving the league's rookies.
73 percent of the league's GMs said Paige Bueckers would win Rookie of the Year, but 60 percent said that five years from now, Dominique Malonga will be the best rookie from this class. So, why the disconnect?
Malonga's young. The 19-year-old has less experience than Bueckers simply because of her age, making it more likely that Bueckers is ready to play high-level basketball immediately.
But Malonga is such a fascinating prospect. She'll likely come off the bench behind Ogwumike and Ezi Magbegor for now, but her athleticism could make a big impact in the minutes she does play. She moves well all around the flor and can score from anywhere, and she uses her athleticism well on the defensive end. If she can be ready from day one, the Storm's ceiling will rise dramatically.
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Is this the most talented roster that Skylar Diggins has been part of?
I saw this really curious quote from Skylar Diggins, which got me thinking:
Is Diggins just hyping up her team, or is this really the most talented roster she's been on?
Probably a little of both.
Diggins has been around awhile, but has been on just four teams that finished over .500. The best team she was on was last year's Storm team.
That's where her statement might ring a bit hollow. Last year's Storm team had the same core trio as this one but with Loyd and a healthy Jordan Horston. This team added Erica Wheeler, Lexie Brown, Zia Cooke and Alysha Clark, who are all really good players, but it also lost a good role player in Sami Whitcomb and a solid backup center in Mercedes Russell. I'd argue that last year's Seattle was a better roster than this one.
Still, this is a good roster, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see things come together for the team to make a deep playoff run. However, Diggins might have been exagerrating a little bit. The loss of Loyd in particular will be tough on this squad.