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UPDATE: June 5 — There are now conflicting reports on whether or not the Storm are actually under investigation or not. Our coverage on the latest updates around this developing news story can be found here.
Original story follows.
The Seattle Storm have gone through some cataclysmic changes over the past few years, starting with Sue Bird retiring after two decades with the franchise. Soon after, Breanna Stewart signed with the New York Liberty in free agency, and the Storm signed Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins. The last piece of their Big-Three of the 2010s, Jewell Loyd, did not last long after that, requesting a trade ahead of the 2025 season. Loyd was moved to Las Vegas after a decade of playing in Seattle, but not before accusing the Storm staff of “bullying and harrassment,” leading to the Storm hiring an external law firm to investigate those allegations.
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Shortly after the Storm announced in a statement that “there were no findings of policy violations or any discrimination, harassment, or bullying,” Loyd requested the trade. She recently said on a podcast that at the time, she told her agent to send her anywhere that would take her and that “it couldn’t get worse.”
That part of the story seemed to have concluded when Loyd was traded to Las Vegas, and it appeared both parties were ready to move on. Yet another chapter opens this week as it’s been announced and confirmed that the Storm will undergo another investigation into their coaching practices, per WNBA insider Khristina Williams.
The news comes on the same day that Storm player Li Yueru, an international player from China, requested a trade out of Seattle.
The two news bits may be connected, but they also may not be. There is also some reporting that Yueru and her representation’s request to move her from Seattle is more a request from the Chinese National Team. Yueru is staying in the United States this WNBA season as opposed to playing for China, and apparently, the federation expected her to have a bigger role on the Storm if she were not going to be reporting for her international team duties, according to The Next and Forbes contributor Roberta F. Rodrigues:
It’s not uncommon for international federations to have high expectations of their star players, either. The French National Team is another team known for wanting long-term commitments from their players, a reason why Gabby Williams did not come to the WNBA last season before the Olympics and why Marine Johannes did not play at all in 2024. So reports that the Chinese federation wants their star player to get more run in the WNBA if she is going to be there are not totally unexpected or outside of the realm of possibility.
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It’s also natural to wonder if the two reports are connected, since it is unusual to request a trade seven games into a season. Even in the shorter WNBA season, that’s still fairly quick, given the trade deadline isn’t until Aug. 7.
As of this story’s original publishing time, no one on Seattle’s current roster has made any sort of comment about the current investigation, or really about Loyd’s departure. But this new investigation is specifically being carried out by the WNBA and league security, per Williams’s report, so while it may be connected to what was going on last year, or it could be something new, but the big difference is that the league is investigating them, not a law firm the team hired itself. This is not the first time the WNBA has investigated teams, and it also has an ongoing investigation into the Las Vegas Aces right now that has been going on since last season, so it’s entirely possible this will not be wrapped up quickly, either.
