Notes from Day 1 of Storm Training Camp

The first practice for the Seattle Storm is in the books.

Sunday, April 19th, was Day 1 of training camp for the Seattle Storm and the 2026 WNBA season. At the Storm’s practice facility, there were a lot of new faces running around, and that included the brand new coaching staff headlined by Coach Sonia Raman. Being that it was just day one of practice, there wasn’t a ton of major revelations, but these are some notes I took from what stood out.

Flau’jae

As soon as the media was allowed to come in, it was while the players were scrimmaging against the male practice players. Right after I took my seat, I watched Flau’jae Johnson crossover her defender to create excellent separation as she pulled up and knocked down the midrange jumper. That seemed to get some “oohs” and “aahs” from those in attendance and from some of her teammates.

That wasn’t the only time Flau’jae would impress. She made a couple of acrobatic layups against the defense where her athleticism clearly stood out. Johnson made another nice play where she missed a corner three-pointer, raced to get her own rebound, then sank a dribble step-back fadeaway over the defense.

Afterward, I got to participate in a scrum interview, and to no surprise, she’s going to be a media darling. Her positive energy and outgoing personality shined through even after just talking for a few minutes.

Back in November, I wrote this about Flau’jae.

Flau’jae Johnson is an excellent guard/wing prospect with high-end athleticism. Johnson is arguably the most complete guard in the draft. She is strong on both ends of the court. She can do just about everything. She is a strong dribbler who can create her own shot, attack the rim, and knock down the three-ball. Flau’jae would be the most obvious pick as a direct Jewell Loyd replacement. She has also been compared to the Mercury’s Kahleah Copper.

Nothing that I saw today changes my mind about what I said previously. Flau’jae is going to be able to use her athleticism and shot creation ability to score in the WNBA. Of course, this doesn’t mean there won’t be growing pains. But I’d be surprised if she doesn’t end up earning the starting Shooting Guard spot to start the season.

I spoke with Flau’jae after practice about how this compared to her first days at LSU.

“It’s the same. You know, I’m like, ‘What do I gotta do to play? What do I gotta do to be good? What I gotta do to learn the system?’ Just respond, come in, be confident, just come in ready to learn. I think everyone has a great opportunity here because it’s a new system, new people, new staff. So just take advantage of that opportunity. I think you know me, I just walk in with my confidence. My mom told me, go in there like you belong, so that’s what I’ve tried to do.” Johnson told me.

Mackenzie Holmes

Mackenzie Holmes made some nice hustle plays during some of the open scrimmages. I believe she was able to beat Dominique Malonga to get an offensive rebound, and she scored again on a short drive to the rim.

I’ll be very interested to see how the roster shakes out. I don’t think the team will carry six post players, and they might not even keep five. Will the Storm go with seven wings + guards and five post players? Or could it be eight guards/wings and just four post players? That’s important for when it comes to Mackenzie Holmes because I would have her 5th on the post depth chart behind Dom, Ezi, Awa, and Stef Dolson.

If Holmes doesn’t make the final 12, I think she’d be one of their two developmental players, unless she got picked up on waivers by another team.

Sitting Out

I noted a few players who didn’t participate in the 5-on-5 scrimmages. They were Jordan Horston, Katie Lou Samuelson, and Ezi Magbegor. During Coach Raman’s scrum interview, the media asked about Horston and Samuelson. She confirmed that they are still ramping up to 5-on-5 competition as both players are coming back from their torn ACL injuries.

I would expect Jordan to be a little closer than Lou, as I believe her injury occurred around two months before Samuelson had her injury. There is a chance that maybe they aren’t ready to go at the start of the season (my speculation). Coach Raman said that when they had more information to share on their injuries, they would. And if I see them participate in 5-on-5 during any part of training camp, I can update as well.

As far as Magbegor goes. I wonder if she just got veteran rest during the scrimmage time. While Horston was more in sweats, getting some work done on a massage table, and Samuelson was doing some resistance band training, Ezi was in full gear, but just stayed on the “bench” during the scrimmages that were open to the media.

Maybe there is a small something she is nursing, or it could just be that they don’t really need to evaluate Magbegor, and there are a lot of other players vying for the final one or two spots on the roster, so it’s more important for them to get some scrimmage time in.

Lineups

The first 5-on-5 scrimmage between all WNBA players (no male practice players) had these lineups.

Team Black:
Dominique Malonga, Natisha Hiedeman, Grace VanSlooten, Lexie Brown, Taina Mair

Team White:
Stefanie Dolson, Mack Holmes, Flau’jae Johnson, Jade Melbourne, Zia Cooke

I’m not sure how much we can take from that. As I mentioned above, Ezi, Jordan, and Katie Lou were all out. And Awa Fam is still playing overseas and was not there. I think at some point they will play the ones versus the twos, but on Day 1, we’re definitely not there yet.

The main thing I noticed was that Jade Melbourne was playing the point for Team White and Natisha Hiedeman was playing the point for Team Black. Taina Mair was on Team Black, but I don’t recall ever seeing her be the lead guard during the scrimmages that media were allowed to watch (final 30 minutes of practice).

Jade running point makes sense to me as I have her penciled in as the team’s backup point guard for this season behind Hiedeman. I posted my post-draft depth chart online a few days ago and will include it below.

This was after the draft, but before we got the announcements of the additional camp invitees. Nothing I saw today has really told me it should be much different than this. But it’s still very early. We still have around two weeks of practices and preseason games before final roster decisions have to be made. I guess my one question would be if it’s possible Jordan Horston and/or Katie Lou Samuelson aren’t ready to play 5-on-5 by the start of the season. It’s possible they’ll have to make do with fewer players early in the season, or play their developmental players early on.

Speaking of developmental players, I believe I saw Grace make a nice play. And Jalyn Brown (rookie out of Michigan State) made at least two nice plays that I saw.

Pace of Play

Another thing that immediately stood out to me was the pace of play the team was running during their scrimmages. They had a super short shot clock. I think it was only 14 seconds instead of 24 seconds, but it might have been even shorter than that. They really wanted the players to get out in transition and attack the defense as fast as possible. This could be a way to help build conditioning. I’m sure the team is also looking to play a fast-paced offensive style because they have so many athletes on the team. Huh. I mean, they’re all athletes, of course, but the Storm have some ATHLETES.

The one downside to this faster pace and short shot clock was that there were several shot clock violation turnovers, or bad shots taken to avoid the shot clock violation. But there were still some bright moments. Stefanie Dolson hit Jade Melbourne on a beautiful backdoor cut that resulted in a reverse layup. Flau’jae Johnson attacked the rim multiple times with some nice finishes in transition.

In one of the true half-court sets, Stef Dolson got open and knocked down a three-pointer.

After practice was over, I asked Coach Raman about the shorter shot clock, faster pace, and what she was looking to accomplish with that.

“Yeah, that was obviously intentional. We are trying to play fast, we get them comfortable playing fast. I think for anyone who was here and watched it, they might have seen some of the discomfort. We’re trying to break through that. We’re looking to get the ball up the floor as early as we can, touch the paint as early as we can, and see if we can get those early rollers. That was kind of the idea.” Raman told me.

“We also want to be elite as a transition defensive team. So if we’re guarding ourselves and we’re trying to push the ball, it’s really going to help us transition defense-wise. I saw some good things. There just wasn’t the consistency yet, right? And you’re going to hear me say yet quite a bit because it’s super early. I saw some really good things on both ends, and we just have to keep going.” She added.

This season is likely to be about growth and development. On Sunday, the team started Step 1 of that process.

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