For much of the 2024 WNBA regular season, the story of the Seattle Storm has been about establishing chemistry as they try to bounce back from an 11-29 record and return to contention. An all-in free agency period that brought stars Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith to Seattle all but guaranteed the Storm would make the playoffs in 2024, though it was understood that they’d need time to get used to playing with each other, as well as with 2023’s leading scorer, Jewell Loyd, if the Storm were truly going to be a championship-caliber team.
Seattle looked to be headed in the right direction before the mid-July Olympic break—not a perfect team by any means, but at 17-8, one that had been impressive nonetheless—but has stumbled since then. The Storm have lost five of seven games since WNBA play resumed in August, slipping to fifth place in the league standings as several concerning trends have emerged.
Perhaps the most glaring of those trends is how badly…
