It’s been a rough season for the Seattle Storm this year. It can be difficult to find the words to write during a long season that’s witnessed more than 30 losses, the most in franchise history. But it’s been a little while since I’ve chimed in with some additional thoughts and commentary, and with the FIBA World Cup break and the new week ahead, I thought now would be a good time to get back to that.
In this one, I give an update on the WNBA Draft Lottery process and where the Storm stand, discuss Jade Melbourne’s progress, and contemplate the Storm’s post depth moving forward.
Draft Lottery Update
With recent outcomes, I think we can narrow down where Seattle is going to finish no matter what happens over the team’s final four games in September. All 15 teams have now played 40 of their 44 regular-season games. We know the eight teams that will battle it out in the playoffs, and which teams are hoping for some lottery luck.
With the Toronto Tempo’s complete collapse this season, they have locked themselves into Top 3 lottery odds. The Connecticut Sun and the Chicago Sky are also guaranteed to finish in the Top 3 thanks to their subpar play for two consecutive seasons. This doesn’t mean these three teams will all finish with a Top 3 pick, but their lottery odds give them the best shot to do so.
This means that no matter what the Storm do, even if they lose all four of their remaining games and finish the season with the worst record in the league, the best odds they can finish with would be the fourth-best odds to win the lottery.
The WNBA has not officially announced how the lottery odds will work with seven teams missing the playoffs for the first time since 2002. For now, we have to go off an estimate that says the Storm would likely have around an 11% chance at the #1 overall pick and a 13% chance at the #2 pick. Maybe the Storm will get lucky, and the league decides to spread the odds more evenly instead of weighting them heavily toward the bottom two teams. Or maybe Seattle will get extremely lucky, and the WNBA will remove the two-year lottery rule entirely, handing Seattle the best odds to land the top pick in the draft.