sit out her second straight year<\/a> following a season-ending knee injury.<\/p>\nThese are the Storm’s unrestricted free agents: Skylar Diggins, Ezi Magbegor, Tiffany Mitchell, Nneka Ogwumike, Katie Lou Samuelson, Brittney Sykes, Erica Wheeler and Gabby Williams.<\/p>\n
Zia Cooke and Mackenzie Holmes are restricted free agents.<\/p>\n
One final thought before we get to the predictions: It\u2019s nearly impossible to forecast what the Storm will do over this next month, which is going to be one of the most chaotic periods in league history considering roughly 80% of the league \u2014 more than 100 players \u2014 are unrestricted free agents.<\/p>\n
Dates are still not official, but free agency is expected to begin next week. The top players are looking to cash in on $1.4 million supermax deals \u2014 up from the previous $249,244 \u2014 and teams will have figure out how to manage a $7 million salary cap, which is significant increase from $1.5 million last season.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also difficult to foresee if first-year coach Sonia Raman and general manager Talisa Rhea will want to keep the core intact from a team that finished 23-21 last year and lost in the first round of the playoffs or begin a rebuild with two (Nos. 3 and 14) first-round picks in the April 13 WNBA draft.<\/p>\n
With that being said, here\u2019s a look at the five players the Storm should protect in order of importance. To be clear, things get a little murky after the top two.<\/p>\n
Dominique Malonga: Protecting the 20-year-old Malonga, the No. 2 overall pick in last year\u2019s draft, is a no-brainer. There\u2019s no scenario in which they allow her to leave because she\u2019s under a team-friendly contract for the next three years and the 6-foot-6 center, who garnered all-rookie honors, has shown potential of being a generational superstar. She averaged 7.7 points and 4.6 rebounds in 42 games as a reserve.<\/p>\n
Gabby Williams: In her seventh season, the 29-year-old Williams played in her first All-Star Game last year and appears to be entering her prime after averaging 11.6 points and 4.2 assists \u2014 both career highs \u2014 in 2025. During the offseason, Williams has been a frequent visitor at the Storm practice facility, she was the only player who attended Raman\u2019s introductory news conference and she represented the Storm at the WNBA expansion draft lottery.<\/p>\n
Nneka Ogwumike: Since her arrival two years ago, Ogwumike has been the Storm\u2019s best player, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the 35-year-old future Hall of Famer will return even if she’s protected. The 10-time All-Star forward is going to have plenty of options in free agency and she may not want to stick around if the Storm opt for a youth movement that could take 2-3 years to build a title contender.<\/p>\n
Jordan Horston: Even though she\u2019s coming off a serious knee injury and missed the 2025 season, it makes sense to protect Horston considering her age (24) and she\u2019s under team control for two more years at a relative discount \u2014 her 2026 salary was $87,080 under the old CBA. During her two years, the No. 9 overall pick in the 2023 draft and all-rookie choice has shown flashes of promise while averaging 6.9 points, 4.7 rebounds and starting fewer than half of her 75 games.<\/p>\n
Ezi Magbegor: It\u2019s unclear if the 26-year-old Magbegor peaked three years ago when she averaged career highs in points (13.8), rebounds (8.1), assists (2.6) and steals (1.1) while garnering her only All-Star nod. Her offensive production has dipped in each of the past two seasons, but the 6-4 center is still a defensive dynamo who set a franchise record and led the league with 96 blocks while notching all-defensive second-team honors. Magbegor may be expendable because it\u2019s uncertain if she can play alongside Malonga and Ogwumike.<\/p>\n
That leaves Diggins, Sykes and Wheeler unprotected and, in this scenario, Sykes is likely gone.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old Sykes, who arrived via a trade last August and played 17 games in Seattle including the playoffs, is considered the No. 1 overall pick in a few mock expansion drafts.<\/p>\n
One can make a strong case to protect the 35-year-old Diggins, who is a seven-time All-Star, and the 34-year-old Wheeler, who became a fan favorite in Seattle while averaging 10.3 points \u2014 her most since 2021 \u2014 as a part-time starter.<\/p>\n
The veteran point guards revitalized their careers with the Storm, but their relative advanced age and likely salary demand \u2014 the veteran minimum for players with at least 10 years of experience is $300,000 \u2014 make them expendable.<\/p>\n
The Storm could alleviate any fears of losing players in the expansion draft much like the Chicago Sky, which traded their No. 17 overall pick to Portland and No. 26 overall pick to Toronto in the upcoming draft in exchange for an agreement that the teams do not select any players from Chicago\u2019s unprotected list.<\/p>\n
In addition to their two first-round selections, the Storm have the No. 16 overall (first in the second round) and No. 39 overall (ninth in the third round) picks in the draft, which includes three rounds and 45 picks.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Storm were the only WNBA team that didn\u2019t lose a player in the expansion draft.<\/p>\n
Betty Lennox (2008 to the Atlanta Dream) and Francesca Zara (2006 to the Chicago Sky) are the only Storm players taken in an expansion draft.<\/p>\n
WNBA key dates<\/p>\n
Friday: Expansion draft<\/p>\n
April 7-18: Potential date for free agency period<\/p>\n
April 13: WNBA draft<\/p>\n
April 19:\u00a0Training camps open<\/p>\n
April 25:\u00a0Storm preseason opener at Golden State<\/p>\n
May 8: Storm regular-season opener vs. Golden State<\/p>\n
June 30: Commissioner\u2019s Cup championship game<\/p>\n
July 24-25: WNBA All-Star weekend<\/p>\n
Aug. 31-Sept. 16: FIBA World Cup break<\/p>\n
Sept. 23: Storm regular-season finale<\/p>\n
Sept. 27: WNBA playoffs begin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA players, front office executives and fans will have no choice but to get comfortable with expansion drafts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,1440,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-578032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-storm","12":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578032","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=578032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}