What Ezi Magbegor's Injury Means

A discussion on Seattle's options after the latest injury news.

On Monday, the Seattle Storm announced that Ezi Magbegor had suffered an injury during the 2026 FIBA Basketball World Cup Qualifiers. Those qualifiers took place between March 11th and March 18th. Specifically, Magbegor was injured during the Australian Opals game against Hungary on March 14th. She did not play in the final two games of the Qualifying tournament, where the Opals finished 5-0.

On Sunday, I had noticed Magbegor was not participating in any of the 5-on-5 live scrimmages against either the male practice players or the WNBA players. On Monday, ahead of Storm media day, the team released this press release announcing that Magbegor had suffered an injury and would be re-evaluated in 6-8 weeks.

This is obviously terrible news. Not only is Magbegor the Storm’s highest-paid player after signing a 3-year/$3.75 million deal, but she is expected to be one of the team’s best players. She is the top scorer who remains on the roster from the 2025 season.

It’s also unfortunate because this season was going to be an important one for Magbegor. In 2023, Ezi was the Storm’s primary post player for the first time in her career and earned a WNBA All-Star honor while averaging around 14.0 PPG, 8.0 RPG, and 2.0 BPG. Her stats have dipped in the past two seasons after Seattle signed Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins, especially in 2025. The Storm are going to need players to step up this season after opting not to (or being unable to) re-sign Nneka Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins, Brittney Sykes, or Gabby Williams. Magbegor was one of the primary options to step up in their absence.

I expected either Ezi Magbegor or Dominique Malonga to lead the Storm in scoring this season. Now that responsibility almost certainly falls on the 20-year-old center from France.

Unless Magbegor recovers earlier than expected, she will miss all of May and potentially all of June. The Storm play nine games in May and 11 games in June. Those first 20 games are nearly 50% of the season (44 games total).

What Does it Mean for the Storm?

In the grand scheme of things, I’m not sure Ezi’s injury has a huge impact on the season. This isn’t the same as Breanna Stewart tearing her Achilles shortly before the 2019 WNBA season, as the Storm were looking to repeat as WNBA Champions after winning in 2018. It isn’t the same as Stewie tearing her other Achilles at the end of the 2021 regular season, leaving the Storm vulnerable in the playoffs and a first-round exit.

The Storm aren’t expected to be a title contender this year. Realistically, they aren’t expected to be a playoff team either. With the added expansion franchises, there will be seven teams that miss the playoffs this year; just two years ago, that number was only four.

Seattle’s defense will be tested as one of the WNBA’s best defensive players won’t be available to anchor their defense. The team can’t replace Magbegor’s defensive impact with one player. They’re going to have to build off of their defensive systems, communicate well, and stay structured. Dominique Malonga will need to have strong foul discipline, as without Magbegor, she is likely to be the team’s primary shot blocker.

I’m very excited to watch the team this season. There will be a lot to look forward to, mostly with the growth and development of younger players. And how they take to the new coaching. Without Magbegor on the court for roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the season, the development will be expedited even faster than expected.

With Ezi’s injury, I would say the Storm are rather fortunate that they drafted 6’4” Awa Fam third overall in the WNBA Draft. Only a few days ago, that selection looked like the team was adding to an area of strength. Now it feels fortuitous that the draft played out that way for Seattle.

Fam is not a 1-to-1 Magbegor replacement; certainly not on the defensive end. But there is a reason why she was considered the prospect with the highest upside in the 2026 WNBA Draft. She has the size and skill to be an elite modern big in the league.

Replacement Options

In theory, Awa Fam makes the most sense as a replacement for Ezi Magbegor in the starting lineup. The Storm would be replacing a 6’4” tall, long athlete with a varied skillset with another 6’4” tall, long, skilled athlete. However, that is certainly not a guarantee for several reasons.

Does Seattle want to start a 19-year-old at power forward and a 20-year-old at center? The roster is obviously very young with several of the key players being 25 or younger, but 19 and 20 is really young.

Fam is also still playing overseas in Spain. She hasn’t had the chance to learn Coach Sonia Raman’s offensive and defensive systems. She hasn’t had the opportunity to build chemistry and a rapport with her Storm teammates. It’s unwise to thrust someone into action when they aren’t prepared, especially at her age.

Another solution would be to have Stefanie Dolson fill in, at least for the first couple of weeks, until the coaches believe Awa is ready. Dolson is entering her 13th season in the league this year. She is a steady veteran who can keep the ship afloat as best as possible during Ezi’s absence. At 6’5”, Dolson and the 6’6” Malonga would give the Storm excellent size in the frontcourt.

If the team prefers to keep Dolson as a veteran backup off the bench, the Storm could start Mackenzie Holmes. With Magbegor’s injury, I believe Holmes chances of being on the final roster are even higher than before, and they were fairly high to begin with. Holmes should be more prepared to come in and compete after experiencing the WNBA last season and finishing a full professional season in Australia. She also got a little more pro experience in China after the Australian season ended.

The next options get a little murkier because they, too, are recovering from injuries, but the Storm have 6’2” Jordan Horston and 6’3” Katie Lou Samuelson. In my projected depth chart, I have them as the starting and backup small forwards on the team. However, the Storm could go smaller with their lineup if they choose not to do one of the previously mentioned options. While Horston is more of a guard than a power forward, she is athletic enough to play the position, as Coach Quinn had her do in her rookie season. If both players are healthy, the Storm could have a starting lineup of Natisha Hiedeman, Flau’jae Johnson, Katie Lou Samuelson, Jordan Horston, and Dominique Malonga.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe Lou will be ready to go 5-on-5 at the start of the season. Jordan Horston confirmed her goal is to be ready by May 8th (1st regular-season game), but that is still not a guarantee. Maybe by the end of May, this will be an option, but it doesn’t look like it will be to begin the year.

The team could go even smaller by moving Flau’jae Johnson from the shooting guard to the small forward position. That would likely move either Jade Melbourne, Zia Cooke, or Lexie Brown into the starting lineup. If that happens, they’d still need either Holmes or Horston to play the power forward.

With Nneka Ogwumike back with the Los Angeles Sparks and now Ezi Magbegor injured, the Storm can no longer slow-play the development of Dominique Malonga or rookie Awa Fam. They will be tossed straight into the fire this season.

The good news is that the team has positioned itself where growth, development, and mistakes are all good things this year. Wins are much less important than they’ve been since maybe the 2015 season, when they knew another poor performance in the WNBA standings could result in a game-changer in 2016, Breanna Stewart. A down season this year could result in JuJu Watkins heading to Seattle in 2027.

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