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The WNBA’s Seattle Storm have shocked the league this week with a sudden five-game losing streak that has taken them from a top-5 team to one fighting for a playoff spot. For a team with so much talent on paper, it has been shocking to see them unable to win games, and even before the last week and a half, the Storm have been hot and cold all season.
They made some changes last week ahead of the WNBA Trade Deadline on Aug. 7 to address their issues. In a trade with the Washington Mystics, they acquired WNBA All-Star Brittney Sykes in exchange for Alysha Clark, Zia Cooke, and their 2026 first-round draft pick.
Days after the trade was finalized, reports are now coming out that Clark was the one to request the trade out of Seattle.
First, the 38-year-old veteran said that things had not gone to plan in her return to the franchise she won a championship with in 2020, and that she wanted to take control of her career.
Clark also told Mystics’ beat writer Kareem Copeland that she appreciated the cooperation from the Storm and wanted to make sure she does what makes her happy and comfortable at this stage of her career. She has just arrived in Washington and is settling in.
Yet, the second part of the news that was broken this afternoon raises even more questions. Another reporter, this time one from Seattle, reported that multiple sources say that there have been “verbal altercations” in the Storm locker room.
This is sounding slightly similar to reports from Seattle in the 2024 WNBA season. Altercations in the locker room, disputes between personnel, and ultimately the trade request from Jewell Loyd. Are the same problems coming up again? Or have the Storm just caught two unlucky, unrelated breaks in a row?
The Seattle Storm have crashed down into 8th place league-wide, after teetering around the 4/5 spot for weeks. The standings are so close — with only 2 games separating 8th place from 5th place — so it’s still possible for the Storm to reclaim a spot higher in the standings. Especially with some of the injury luck other teams have had recently.
Seattle will have two very important games this week against the Atlanta Dream, one at home and then one in Vancouver, British Columbia. With Atlanta doing so well, Seattle winning one or both of these games would do wonders for their standing.
If the streak doesn’t get snapped soon, they could risk losing home-court advantage or worse, their playoff spot. But there is also the reality that if these off-court trends continue, they also may have bigger problems on their hands.
