Aces Defeat Storm 101-91 Part 2
Additional thoughts, discussion, and interviews from Seattle's loss to Las Vegas.
Despite this being the Seattle Storm’s sixth loss in a row and 10th of the season, I come away from Monday’s game highly encouraged. They battled the most talented team in the WNBA to a competitive 10-point loss on the road. Seattle literally took arguably the Aces’s best shot and didn’t get completely blown out. A’ja Wilson had to play 36 minutes, Chelsea Gray played 35, and Jackie Young played 34 minutes in this game. Not one Storm player played over 30 minutes. I believe this was Seattle’s best game of the season when factoring in the competition. If you missed it, you can read the full recap at the link below.
In Part 2, I wrote about the situation with the Storm releasing Lexie Brown and signing Taylor Thierry to a standard full-time contract. I talked about how Seattle is built to stop A’ja Wilson (down the road). I discussed why I’m so encouraged by this performance and how the future is bright for the Storm organization. I’ve included some quotes and audio interviews with both the Seattle Storm and the Las Vegas Aces.
Brown Out/Thierry In
On Monday afternoon, the Seattle Storm announced that they had waived Lexie Brown. A couple of hours later, the team stated that they had converted Taylor Thierry’s development roster spot to a full-time standard WNBA contract.
The move came after Lexie Brown had missed the last two games and was initially listed on the injury report as OUT for Monday’s game with the designation “Not with Team”. Brown’s playing time had decreased significantly after the Storm added Katie Lou Samuelson and Awa Fam to the active roster.
Before those two joined, Brown’s minutes per game were 22, 21, 16, 16, 22, and 13. After Fam and Samuelson started playing, Brown’s minutes decreased to 8, 11, 13, 5, and 0. Lexie’s final game on the bench was on June 3rd against the Phoenix Mercury, but she never entered the game and was a DNP - Coach’s Decision. From there, when the team traveled to Minnesota, she was listed as “OUT - Not with Team”.
On Monday, the team made it official and released her. From what I know, this isn’t a health issue with Brown. It was a basketball decision. It is also possible that Brown requested to be released if she wasn’t going to play. Coach Sonia Raman was asked about the team waiving Brown and signing Taylor Thierry to the main roster during the pregame press conference. Raman had this to say.
“We decided to waive Lexie. We wish her all the best. I think just where we are as a team and where she is in her career, just weren't aligned at the moment. We're excited about Taylor and her being able to move from her development spot to the roster spot. She's worked really hard. Credit to our player development coaches as well for the work that they put into that space. We want to really be a high-level development system here and be able to bring players in and pour into them and allow them to have these opportunities. So credit to the coaches and credit to Taylor for all the work she's put in to get to this point."
It’s true that Brown didn’t fit in with a team that is trying to build through the draft and their youth. Lexie was the second-oldest player on the roster, only behind Stefanie Dolson. It also didn’t help her case when she was outplayed by others like Zia Cooke. Even though Brown was supposed to be the team’s three-point shooter, Cooke was often the better scorer and shooter as far as consistent bench production.
Before final roster decisions had been made, I had argued that the Storm might be better off waiving Lexie Brown at the beginning of the season to keep Zia Cooke and rookie Taina Mair on the main roster. I was concerned that Mair, as a 2026 first-round pick, may not make it through the waiver wire, and I wasn’t convinced keeping Lexie was worth that risk. However, the team did have options now that the WNBA has implemented the two extra development squad players as part of the new 2026 CBA. Seattle took that risk and waived Mair, but were fortunate in that she wasn’t picked up. They re-added her to the development squad, and that allowed them to keep Brown on the main roster.
With the decision to upgrade Taylor Thierry to the main roster, I have to wonder if the Storm’s front office was concerned that another team was interested in signing Thierry to their main active roster. Or maybe even Thierry’s agent had an offer from another team, and gave the Storm the option to add her to the main roster or let her sign with the other team.
It’s also just possible that the team had been impressed with what they had seen from Thierry in practices and behind the scenes, and they decided that keeping the 23-year-old Thierry was more in line with their vision for the team than keeping 31-year-old Lexie Brown, who might be frustrated by a lack of playing time.
Whatever the reason, Lexie Brown is no longer on the roster. When the trade for Brown was initially made a couple of years ago, I thought it was a smart move because the team clearly lacked three-point shooting in 2024, and it was a big reason they weren’t able to get past the Las Vegas Aces in the first-round of the playoffs. Seattle gave up two second-round picks in exchange for Brown and a third-round pick. It cost Seattle five spots in the 2025 draft (moving from a late 2nd to an early 3rd), and unfortunately, it’s likely going to cost the Storm a very good early second-round pick for the 2027 WNBA Draft. It’ll likely be Pick 16, 17, or 18.
In separate trades, Seattle got pick #2 (Dom Malonga) and pick #3 (Awa Fam) from the Los Angeles Sparks, so I suppose it’s only fair that LA gets a good pick from Seattle too.