Mid-Season Check-in: Can Storm Still Make Playoff Push in Second Half?

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Seattle Storm forward Dominique Malonga reacts during the team’s 77-72 loss to the Portland Fire on Saturday, July 4, at Climate Pledge Arena. Credit: Courtesy of Seattle Storm [/caption]

The Seattle Storm are midway through their first rebuilding season after a mass exodus of talent. That major roster turnover also led to talent acquisition, but the lineup is filled with young, rising players who are still finding their footing in the WNBA.

At 5-17 overall, the Storm are exactly where many thought they would be in 2026. Sure, they have an emerging Dominique Malonga in her second season and exciting pieces around her, but there’s currently too much weight on the 20-year-old’s shoulders for Seattle to find consistent success.

Injuries haven’t helped. Malonga missed eight games from mid-May to early June, Ezi Magbegor has only recently returned and played the last two games, and Jordan Horston has missed five total games.

Expectations were low heading into the season, but hopes for the future were high. That remains the sentiment at this point in the campaign. But is there any chance the Storm could make a late-season run and push for a playoff berth?

Why Storm will make playoff push

There’s no getting around the potential this team has. Rookies Flau’jae Johnson and Awa Fam have been outstanding — even through their inconsistencies — and that duo in combination with Malonga makes the Storm’s ceiling exceptionally high this season and beyond.

Malonga has had a few off nights since her return, but she’s becoming the exact player the Storm’s front office envisioned when they drafted her No. 2 overall in 2025. She’s a true No. 1 scoring option, a double-double machine and improving as a defender each night.

Natisha Hiedeman has been a solid No. 2 scoring option in her first full-time starting role since 2023. She has left something to be desired in her playmaking abilities, but Jade Melbourne has helped pick up some of that effort. 

We’ve seen the Storm play at a high level. They looked like a completely different team in the consecutive wins against the New York Liberty and Atlanta Dream, snapping an 11-game losing streak by beating the top two teams in the Eastern Conference.

In those games, head coach Sonia Raman played her starters extended minutes, and they were extremely efficient on offense. She’s gone away from that in the last two games with the return of Horston and Magbegor, and the Storm went right back to previous inconsistencies.

Tighten up the rotation. Lean heavily on Malonga, Fam, Hiedeman, Johnson and Melbourne — trusting that they will find a way to put together more games as they did against the Dream and Liberty, and less like they did in the last two against the Phoenix Mercury and Portland Fire. 

The worst thing Raman can do is feel obligated to give Magbegor and Horston larger roles purely because of their status within the franchise. Magbegor is still an elite interior defender, but she’s more of a role player on this current roster. Malonga and Fam are more well-rounded talents, and they should be kept in the starting lineup.

Let the current lineup keep building together. They could catch a heater, somehow crawl into the top-8 and find themselves in the postseason.

Why Storm won’t make playoff push

They’re simply too inconsistent. For all the positives previously listed, it just feels like the Storm can’t seem to adjust to certain matchups, and those games become hopeless rather quickly.

After stringing together three games where they shot over 50% from the field as a team, they’ve plummeted back to Earth and had a season-worst performance (33.8%) against the Fire on Saturday.

Seattle was turning a corner, then they crashed right back down. In the three-game stretch against Dallas, New York and Atlanta, the Storm averaged 24.7 assists as a team. They’re averaging 17.5 since, highlighting how the ball just stops moving effectively against some teams.

That’s primarily on Hiedeman, who isn’t really a true point guard. She’s averaging 4.5 assists per game in 28.8 minutes, while Melbourne is averaging 3.8 in 23.2 minutes. The Storm are lacking an elite distributor who can get the ball to Fam and Malonga in the post for easy points.

It begs the question of how much better this team would look had they been able to get Olivia Miles in the draft. That would have come at the expense of not acquiring Fam or Johnson, but it is a worthwhile thought experiment. 

Johnson, while electric when she’s on, is extremely streaky offensively. Against the Dream and Liberty, Johnson scored a combined 52 points on 20 of 35 shooting. In the last two games, she’s scored 12 points on 4 of 17 shooting. 

Still, Johnson provides so much utility to the lineup with her rebounding (two double-doubles) and defense. Those are rare traits to get out of a shooting guard, and it’s going to give her a long WNBA career. The drawback is the Storm are heavily hampered during her off nights.

Finally, Seattle’s performance on the road has been outright abysmal. They’re 1-9 this season away from Climate Pledge Arena — the worst road winning percentage of any WNBA team — and that lone victory was in the second game of the campaign. The statistical differences are hard to look at, too.

Storm at home

4-8 record

83.8 points per game (83.0 points allowed)

43.9% FG (41.8% opponent FG)

Storm on the road

1-9 record

75.6 points per game (89.5 points allowed)

40.4% FG (43.9% opponent FG)

The Storm score nearly eight fewer points per game on the road, and they give up almost seven more. That’s a coaching and team mentality issue, and it likely isn’t getting fixed in-season. It’s also the biggest thing working against them making a playoff run.

Being realistic

There is just not enough reason for optimism to confidently say the Storm can turn it around and make a playoff push in 2026. They’ll go home early this year and hopefully find a way to be more consistently polished as a group.

It wouldn’t be shocking at all to see the Storm be a playoff contender in 2027. Malonga will enter Year 3, with Johnson and Fam entering their second seasons. Add a true point guard to the lineup, and Seattle could become a well-oiled machine powered by its post players.

Even with a huge contract for Magbegor, the Storm will have a fair bit of cap space to spend for next season. That gives them options alongside their young core at the cost of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2023. Despite a rough patch, there’s real reason for optimism beyond this season.