You have to give the Seattle Storm credit for its ability to fight to the finish.
Our local WNBA team not only turned a midseason rut into a furious finish for a playoff spot, but even in its playoff series with Las Vegas, turned a 25-point loss in Game 1 into a winner-take-all Game 3 that wasdecided by just one point.
For perspective, Las Vegas won 17 straight games with that 17th being the aforementioned Game 1 win over Seattle. Yet the Storm found a way to fight back to win Game 2 at Climate Pledge Arena Tuesday before Thursday’s 74-73 loss in the desert.
It was the sort of thing that, even in the heartbreak of ending the season, made the loyal Storm fans so proud of their team.
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It left them wanting more, wondering what could be with the future of this team.
That’s a question that almost nobody can answer right now.
You see, most of the Storm mainstays are on expiring contracts. Skylar Diggins, Nneka Ogwumike, Gabby Williams, Erica Wheeler, Brittney Sykes, and Ezi Magbegor are all on expiring deals. That’s by design of course, with the players knowing that the current Collective Bargaining Agreement is coming to an end.
The hope for the players and most observers is that with the league’s exponential growth, players can be paid more reasonable salaries commensurate to the WNBA’s new $2.2 billion TV deal.
The current CBA expires on Nov. 1. Of course, a work-stoppage is possible, but there would still be months to hammer out a new deal before the season begins in the spring of 2026.
The CBA is a game-changing wild card. While it’s practical to believe so many of the Storm stars want to stay here because of what they’ve said publicly regarding the organization, its facilities, and our city, it’s just impossible to know the impacts of a new agreement when it’s not even close to getting done.
In the meantime, it’s something special to see how the Storm dug deep when so many counted them out.
We can only hope most of these players get to run it back, because if they do, it’s hard to count out what they could achieve in 2026.
