After she signed with the Storm this offseason, six-time WNBA All-Star Skylar Diggins-Smith highlighted the resource gap that lingers throughout the league.
“We didn’t even have a weight room when I was in Tulsa,” the prolific point guard said.
Of course, Diggins-Smith spent her first three professional seasons (2013-15) as a member of the Tulsa Shock, which moved to Dallas and rebranded as the Wings in 2016. From there she spent four-season stints with Dallas (2016-19) and the Phoenix Mercury (2020-23), before inking a two-year deal with the Storm this winter.
Diggins-Smith has a weight room now.
But that’s just the beginning.
On Thursday, media members were officially introduced to the Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance — a 50,000-square-foot, $64 million statement in Interbay. The facility includes two practice courts, comprising 15,000 square feet of maple from Minnesota; murals of the city’s skyline, headlined by a neon green Space Needle, stretching across the walls; enough office space for the organization’s entire staff; an aquatics center featuring a lap pool, a steam room and a sauna; a locker room, a lounge, a dining room and a dedicated kitchen; a lobby displaying the team’s four WNBA championship trophies, leading into the Hall of Champions, where the franchise’s former court is converted into a sprawling staircase and entryway.
Oh, and a weight room, as advertised.
But if the above resembles a run-on sentence, here’s the reason: The Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance defies easy description.
It’s a practice facility … and a symbol, and a mission statement, and more.
“Originally when we did this we said, ‘Oh, we need a practice facility.’ Well, this has become so much more,” said Storm co-owner Lisa Brummel, whose team previously practiced at Seattle Pacific University. “I can promise you that I will not refer to this as a practice facility anymore. I will refer to this as the home of the Seattle Storm.”
In that sense, the Storm aim to separate themselves, becoming just the second WNBA team to open a dedicated stand-alone practice facility (after the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces did so last spring). As super teams emerge in New York and Las Vegas and renowned rookies such as Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink and Angel Reese revitalize the league, franchises with the resources and willingness to meaningfully invest will attract top talent and compete for championships.
It’s a practice facility, and an edge.
“It was a factor,” WNBA scoring champion Jewell Loyd said Thursday of the facility’s role in her signing a two-year contract extension in 2023. “You’ve got to look at where you’re trying to go and what you’re trying to do. I told [coach Noelle Quinn] from Day One, ‘I want to have an edge. What’s our edge? What gives us the thing that pushes us over?’ This is an edge. Other teams don’t have this. They don’t have the [resources] that we do, and we’re going to use that.”
They already have.
Diggins-Smith’s addition is proof of that, as is the offseason signing of eight-time All-Star forward and former MVP Nneka Ogwumike.
In a league of haves and have-nots, resources win. Infrastructure wins. Nutrition wins. Strength and conditioning win. Culture wins. Unimpeded court access wins.
Players chase championship support, in all aspects.
Support precedes success.
“When I had taken my visit here, let me tell you, they were working in there [finishing the practice facility],” Ogwumike said this winter. “They were like, ‘This is going to get done.’ I felt the energy of its completion. I felt the energy of the investment. I felt the energy of the engagement, and then just kind of being around people that are like, ‘This is yours, and this is what you deserve.’ It was a feeling I hadn’t felt before.
“When I was able to see it and I was able to hear [general manager Talisa Rhea] talk about it, I realized it was something that should be a priority on my list. Because we’re elite athletes. And of course we’ve been playing in such a transitional period of this league that I think most times what we want and deserve is heavily buried by the collective movement, the selflessness of it all. I’d say now, hindsight is 20-20. That [practice facility] was important. I honestly never thought I’d play in a facility that was my own.”
So, absolutely: That’s a separator for the Seattle Storm.
Even so, it doesn’t guarantee that a retooled roster will conquer the likes of Las Vegas and New York, that a franchise with Sue Bird’s silhouette painted on its practice courts will return to the summit. The sauna and the steam room and the Hall of Champions won’t break a full-court press or bury a shot at the buzzer.
Point being: Loyd, Diggins-Smith, Ogwumike, center Ezi Magbegor, etc., must lift a franchise that regressed (to the tune of an 11-29 record) in 2023, starting May 14 with its season opener against Minnesota.
But in an evolving league, the Storm have positioned themselves to succeed. They built more than a weight room in Interbay.
It’s a practice facility, and it’s proof the Storm are here to stay.
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