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After losing to the Las Vegas Aces in the opening round for the second consecutive year, the Seattle Storm believe they can go further with a new coach, general manager Talisa Rhea said Monday, a day after the franchise announced Noelle Quinn won’t return for 2026.
“I think we had a talented roster that we had high hopes for coming into the season,” Rhea told ESPN. “When you look at some of the individual talent and just collective top-to-bottom roster that we established, I think our hope was that we’d finish better in the regular season and try to make a deep run in the postseason. I think there was some inconsistency in that. A lot of positives, of course, but I think we were hoping to go a little further than we did.”
Rhea clarified that allegations of bullying and harassment against the Storm coaching staff, made last year by All-Star guard Jewell Loyd, were not a factor in the organization’s decision not to bring back Quinn. An independent investigation that concluded in December found no violations.
Quinn, who was promoted to Seattle’s head coach after Dan Hughes retired midseason in 2021, was the second-longest tenured current WNBA head coach, trailing Cheryl Reeve of the Minnesota Lynx, and is second on the Storm’s all-time wins list.
“We’ve been together a long time, and I have a ton of appreciation and respect for Noelle and everything that she’s done here, and the rest of our coaches, as well,” said Rhea, who has been part of Seattle’s organization since 2015 and was named GM in 2021. “We have great relationships outside of our work, so it’s always hard to make these types of decisions.”
During Quinn’s first season, the Storm won the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup. Seattle reached the semifinals in 2022 during Sue Bird’s last year as a player and Breanna Stewart’s last with the organization. Since adding Skylar Diggins and Nneka Ogwumike as free agents ahead of the 2024 season, the Storm won only one game during their two playoff series losses to the Aces.
After trading Loyd to Las Vegas in a three-team move that netted Seattle the 2025 No. 2 pick, which was used on 19-year-old center Dominique Malonga, the Storm started the season 16-11. Seattle added All-Star guard Brittney Sykes in a midseason trade as the Storm pursued a top-four seed and home-court advantage in the first round. Instead, some narrow losses forced Seattle to win its regular-season finale to clinch a playoff spot.
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Rhea felt the Storm’s success against contenders — including pushing the Aces to three games in a series that was decided at the buzzer — showed the potential of the team’s core.
“We feel like we’ve been close to turning that corner, and I think this year, we beat a lot of the top teams throughout the regular season,” Rhea said. “We showed we could compete with them. We were really close to breaking through and turning that corner.”
Ahead of a WNBA offseason when nearly all veteran players will be unrestricted free agents, hoping to capitalize on the potential for increased salaries thanks to a new collective bargaining agreement, none of Seattle’s starters or top reserve, Erica Wheeler, is under contract. Rhea suggested the Storm would like to bring back that group.
“I think we really believe in the roster that we had this year and the core group within that,” she said. “There’s obviously going to be so much change this year, and it’s really hard to know what it could look like, but I think we have a lot of experience with the people that we did have on the roster this year and excited to have those conversations this offseason.”
Seattle is also keeping an eye on the future. Malonga averaged 11.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocks as a reserve after the All-Star break, shooting 58% from the field over that stretch, and was a key part of the Storm’s Game 2 victory over Las Vegas. To Malonga and recent draft picks Jordan Horston and Nika Muhl, both of whom missed this season because of ACL tears, Seattle will add a 2026 lottery pick from the Los Angeles Sparks and another first-round pick from the Aces.
“I think it will be really important to continue that development and at the same time, to have vets that can put us in position to be successful,” Rhea said. “At the end of the day, when you have someone like Dom, who’s able to impact winning now, we hope to find more young players like that as well.”
Rhea made the coaching change three days after the Storm’s season to give Quinn a chance to pursue other opportunities, and allow Seattle to search for a replacement. So far, the Storm are the only WNBA team to change coaches since the start of the season, but the two expansion franchises beginning play in 2026 — the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo — are also searching for their inaugural coaches.
“I think we’re looking for a leader, someone who can manage a group and really establish a new identity,” Rhea said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, and we’re entering a new chapter, just kind of league-wide, so excited for someone to really be able to put their mark on a team and build confidence, build team chemistry and build an identity on the court that will ultimately lead us to trying to compete for years to come.”
