LAS VEGAS — Jewell Loyd said she is \u201cat peace\u201d heading into the Las Vegas Aces\u2019 first-round playoff matchup against her former WNBA team, the Seattle Storm, with whom she had an acrimonious split before being traded in February.<\/p>\n
The Aces and Storm will meet in the first round for the second season in a row, with Game 1 set for Sunday at Michelob Ultra Arena (10 p.m. ET, ESPN)<\/p>\n
Loyd played 10 seasons and won two championships with the Storm, who drafted her No. 1 overall in 2015. After the Aces swept Loyd and the Storm 2-0 in the first round last season, Loyd alleged harassment and bullying by the Storm coaching staff during the offseason and requested a trade. The Storm conducted an independent investigation into the allegations and did not find any violations.<\/p>\n
Loyd said she is not thinking about the past and focusing only on helping the No. 2 seed Aces advance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the season\u2019s gone on, it\u2019s just basketball, right?\u201d Loyd said after practice Saturday. \u201cI\u2019ve settled that. It doesn\u2019t feel like anything. I\u2019m at peace with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loyd returned to Seattle to face the Storm twice this season, with the Storm winning the first meeting in May and the Aces winning the second one in June. Loyd alleged that a Storm assistant coach swore at her during the second game in Seattle. The WNBA reviewed the complaint, but no disciplinary action was taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time I went back, it was a little weird,\u201d Loyd said of playing in Seattle. \u201cBeing a vet in this league, I understand you go through ups and downs. You see a lot of change in the league and the dynamics. Here with the Aces, people see my value. They see who I am, my character and my reputation. I\u2019m way more than just a basketball player here. I feel like I can be myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loyd, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time All-Star, has started most of her WNBA career. She averaged at least 15 points per game in eight of her 10 seasons in Seattle, leading the WNBA in scoring at 24.7 PPG in 2023.<\/p>\n
But she switched to coming off the bench in late July, not long before the Aces began what is now a 16-game winning streak in early August. Loyd suggested the change to coach Becky Hammon, saying she felt like she could better help the team in that role.<\/p>\n
Hammon credited Loyd, who finished the regular season averaging 11.2 points and 3.2 rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor someone with her resume, it\u2019s almost unheard of,\u201d Hammon said of Loyd volunteering to give up her starting role. \u201cAt first, I hesitated. … I wanted her to know full well that my belief in her had not dropped a bit. After a couple more games, she came back to me, and at that point, I wanted to do what was going to ease her mind. You know, maybe I should have done it earlier. She was probably right all along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regarding Loyd\u2019s past issues with Seattle, Hammon said she and Loyd have not talked much about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew there were some difficulties, but it\u2019s not like she is over here trashing the Seattle Storm,\u201d Hammon said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a few conversations here and there, but nothing in depth. She\u2019s never gone into any kind of detail. I can tell you she has been one of my easiest players to coach. She wants to do anything, whatever it takes to win, including moving to the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in those situations [facing a former team], I feel like the first time you play them, there\u2019s going to be some stuff. No matter what I would have said, I knew some emotions would be there. I didn\u2019t want to make a thing of it, because it\u2019s probably already a thing. So I was just like, \u2018Go out and play solid.\u2019 If anything, I was pissed at us as a group because I didn\u2019t think we had her back with the way we played that first game in Seattle. We got our butts kicked.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lot has happened since then, with the Aces moving all the way to the No. 2 seed after starting their winning streak with a .500 record.<\/p>\n
When asked about Loyd on Saturday, the Storm spoke only about how difficult it would be to guard her and the other Las Vegas players. In Las Vegas\u2019 105-75 win at Los Angeles in the season finale on Thursday, Loyd had seven of the Aces\u2019 WNBA regular-season record 22 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see how electric players can be off the bench,\u201d Seattle guard Skylar Diggins said. \u201cWe all know Jewell can shoot the basketball. We definitely have to defend the 3-point line. We saw [their] last game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS — Jewell Loyd said she is \u201cat peace\u201d heading into the Las Vegas Aces\u2019 first-round playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,76336,82,630],"class_list":["post-142334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-seattle-storm-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-161","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}