Report: Storm Hire Sonia Raman as Next Head Coach
ESPN's Shams Charania broke the news of the Storm's next coach.
Per ESPN’s Senior NBA Insider, the Seattle Storm are hiring former New York Liberty Assistant, Sonia Raman, to become the team’s next Head Coach.
From his announcement, “NY Liberty assistant Sonia Raman has agreed to a multiyear deal to become the new head coach of the Seattle Storm, sources tell ESPN. Raman makes WNBA history as the first person of Indian-origin to be head coach - after being the first Indian-American woman to be an NBA assistant.”
Raman was an assistant college coach at Wellesley for six years. She then became the head coach of MIT’s (Division III) Women’s basketball program from 2008 to 2020. She then landed an NBA assistant coach job with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2020 and was with them until 2024. During her time with the Grizzlies, she worked on player development and analytics. Raman joined Sandy Brondello’s staff with the New York Liberty in 2025, and was considered a potential candidate to replace Brondello in Brooklyn.
The Athletic put out a report last week that mentioned Raman had interviewed with the Seattle Storm, and that Seattle was also considering Sandy Brondello and Indiana’s Briann January.
Earlier this week, Howard Megdal reported that the Toronto Tempo, the WNBA’s 14th franchise joining the league in 2026, would be hiring Brondello as the team’s first-ever head coach. Brondello was let go by the Liberty just one season after winning the franchise’s only WNBA Championship.
It’s unclear if the Storm had put an offer out to Brondello or only expressed interest in her. With Raman, there is a little more mystery about what she will bring to Seattle, but she certainly has lots of coaching experience in college, the NBA, and now with the WNBA. It’ll be exciting to see what type of changes she brings to the franchise that is looking to win its 5th WNBA Championship.
As of this writing, the Seattle Storm have not yet publicized the hiring of Raman, but there is often a delay from the Insider “leaks”/reports and the team’s official announcement. For example, Toronto has not officially announced Brondello, and that report came out a few days ago.
If there are any notable changes to this story after it is published, I will update the article as necessary.
For now, sound off in the comments section with your thoughts on the hire.
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I agree with what Sam said. I like this move. I was hoping for Lindsay Harding or Brondello but Raman has a lot of experience and if she can maximize the talent at the end of the bench (something Noelle Quinn had no interest in doing), wonderful.. I'm just happy it wasn't another former player who would basically be learning to become a head coach on the job.
I like the move to hire someone with established coaching experience. After a season that felt like we were constantly running into issues with adjustments and rotations, I was weary of hiring a former player with limited coaching experience (not a specific knock on January, who does have some limited coaching experience, more just the other kinds of names that were floating around). Those grizzlies teams she supported also had a knack for getting a lot out of lesser known role players, and I imagine player development and analytics are at the core of a lot of that success so that’s encouraging!