Storm Through the Years: What Once Was And What Has Yet To Come

Hello!  I was encouraged to write a little bit more about myself and why I’m so passionate about the Storm, so here goes:

I’ve been going to Storm games since the franchise started back in 2000.  My mom got us season tickets for the first year (and then every year after that) and we’ve attended as many games as possible since.  I grew up loving and supporting the Storm, watching these amazing athletes and being inspired by how hard they work every night on and off the court.  In many ways, these women were (and still are!) my role models, fighting through adversity and skepticism to play a sport they love and doing it damn well.

Although I personally have never had much (any) athletic ability, I have always loved basketball for its fast pace, interesting strategy, and sweet passes.  To me, a good shot is nice, but a good assist is nicer, although maybe I’m just saying that having grown up watching Sue Bird.

Unfortunately, the Storm has suffered mightily in recent years with the loss of their three-time MVP, Lauren Jackson.  Time and time again, we fans get our hopes up that this year, she’ll come back and she and Sue will dominate just like in the old days, but we haven’t seen a healthy Lauren since 2010.  That was, not coincidentally, when the Storm won their last championship and the last time they made it past the first round in the playoffs.  She hasn’t even made an appearance in a Storm game since 2012, although technically the Storm still has her under contract, which if you ask me is just prolonging the misery of admitting that she’s probably never going to play in the WNBA again.

The Storm has won 2 championships since its beginning, one in 2004, one in 2010.  For 10 years (after they drafted Sue and Lauren, both number one picks, in 2001 and 2002), the Storm was a playoff team.  Unfortunately, being so good for so long meant one very important thing- we missed out on a huge amount of young talent, and thus our key players (Camille Little, Tanisha Wright, Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson, to name a few), just got older and older with very few youngsters to support the future of the franchise.

Last year, this problem came to a head, as the Storm had the oldest team in the league, went 12-22, and finished as the worst team in both conferences.  A bright spark came of this, though, namely the number one draft pick and very likely the rookie of the year this year, Jewel Loyd.  Even better, as the Storm has done so badly this year, it’s very likely that we’ll get another number one draft pick (or at least one of the top 3), which, as I’ve already pointed out, was how the Storm started off those 10 very successful years.  If we get the number one pick, Breanna Stewart, it will begin very much like it did last time- a big post player who’s very comfortable shooting from the outside in Stewart, and a small, agile guard who can set her and everyone else up in Jewel Loyd.  If we have those two, along with improvement from several of our other young players (Ramu Tokashiki and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, for instance), the Storm will easily be a playoff team next year and a championship team before 2020.

Basically, look to next year for drastic improvements!  We should see some really exciting basketball this May from Seattle- I know I’m going to keep watching!

Comments

1

This kind of context really helps with an understanding of the team.  All I knew about the Storm before this was they won a championship once.  Daps.

2
Cat5's picture

Thanks for the idea!  Context is key and I always forget that most people don't follow the Storm religiously like I do. :)

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