Seattle Storm 2025 Season Grades: Tiffany Mitchell
The 2025 WNBA season is over. With a pending agreement on what will be a transformative collective bargaining agreement between the players and league, this offseason will bring sweeping change prior to the 2026 campaign.
But before all that, there’s still plenty to recap on last season.
The Seattle Storm finished the regular season with a 23-21 record and lost to the would-be WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces in the first round of the playoffs. Seattle has just four players under contract for next season, including rookie phenom Dominique Malonga.
With all that in mind, The Emerald City Spectrum will be dishing out grades for each player who stepped on the court for the Storm in 2025 on offense, defense and overall value.
Signing with the Storm partway through the season, guard Tiffany Mitchell initially looked like a great value add until she saw her playing time evaporate.
Road to 2025 Season
Mitchell, a 10-year WNBA veteran who was with the Connecticut Sun in 2024, originally signed with the Las Vegas Aces this offseason, playing in 16 games with the team and starting two. The Aces waived her on June 30, and she didn’t sign with the Storm until July 11.
Offense
Mitchell played 15 or more minutes in seven of her first 10 games with the Storm. She did that just two more times over the final 13 games of the season.
The veteran guard averaged 2.9 points on 39.3 percent shooting (41.2 percent 3FG) and 0.2 assists in 13 minutes per game. Initially, Mitchell added a spark off the bench — scoring 12 points on 5 of 7 shooting in just her second game in Seattle. But she cracked double figures just one more time all season (11 points vs. Dallas Wings on Aug. 22).
Former Storm head coach Noelle Quinn struggled to find a long-term role for Mitchell. She played anywhere from three minutes to 20, depending on the flow and circumstance of the game.
Mitchell isn’t the most efficient scorer and doesn’t produce assists, but it’s hard to get into a rhythm when there’s no telling how much she will be on the floor on a nightly basis.
Grade: C+
Reasoning: Much of this grade is the product of a lack of opportunities. But Mitchell didn’t seem to fit into the offense well, and only occasionally added a legitimate spark to the unit. By the time the playoffs rolled around, Mitchell wasn’t even seeing the court except for when the Storm got blown out in Game 1.
Skylar Diggins, Erica Wheeler and eventually Brittney Sykes did most of the damage from the guard spots for the Storm, and they played extensive minutes. There wasn’t much wiggle room there.
Defense
Another potential reason Quinn didn’t play Mitchell more was her ineffectiveness defensively. The Storm traded for Sykes — one of the league’s best perimeter defenders — less than a month after Mitchell signed with the team. They didn’t think she was good enough to hold it down in that area.
The addition of Sykes very clearly took away minutes that were originally planned for Mitchell. Over her long career, Mitchell hasn’t been a difference-maker on that end of the court with career averages of just 0.7 steals and 0.1 blocks.
Grade: D
Reasoning: Mitchell struggled to keep up with the league’s faster, more dynamic guards. Defense isn’t her strength, and it’s likely what got her benched later in the season. Sykes was simply a better option there, and the Storm wouldn’t have made the trade for her if they viewed Mitchell as a premium defensive option.
Overall value
During her exit interview, Mitchell tried to make sense of why she wasn’t utilized more. It wasn’t a positive sentiment, as the veteran appeared frustrated with her lack of a role.
“I mean it’s kind of been all over the place,” Mitchell said of her experience with Quinn and the former coaching staff. “When I got here, I was playing a lot, and then I kind of went into not playing at all. So, that’s difficult to manage mentally. But at the same time, again, I know who I am.”
Mitchell added that she wishes “it would have been different,” but that she was grateful to be on the team. But it was emblematic of the way both sides felt about the arrangement, and Mitchell simply wasn’t an impactful piece of the Storm roster down the stretch.
Grade: C-
Reasoning: There’s some value in what Mitchell added before the Storm traded for Sykes. They were winning games initially, but then the Storm began their six-game skid to begin August. Mitchell’s minutes were reduced during that losing streak after Sykes was acquired.
It’s safe to say Mitchell probably won’t be back in Seattle next season, even with a new coaching staff.
