The last time the Seattle Storm finished with the worst record in the WNBA was 2014, when finished just 12-22 and tied with the now-defunct Tulsa Shock. The following season, they drafted Jewell Loyd first overall, and she helped them win titles in 2018 and 2020 alongside 2016 first overall pick Breanna Stewart.
Seattle narrowly made the playoffs last season, but at 6-24, it is on pace for the second-worst record in franchise history. Despite having a young core that features 2025 No. 2 overall pick Dominique Malonga and 2026 No. 3 overall pick Awa Fam (both acquired in trades with the Los Angeles Sparks), the Storm may need another pair of saviors.
Seattle will have a difficult matchup against a playoff team tonight at 7:40 p.m. ET, when it travels to face the Atlanta Dream, who would be the sixth seed in the playoffs if the season ended today.
Both teams should be pretty healthy, as the Storm’s only absence is developmental contract player Taina Mair (coach’s decision), and the Dream’s is reserve guard Te-Hina PaoPao (leg).
Atlanta is a 12.5-point favorite on DraftKings Sportsbook (-720 Moneyline), with the total set at 178.5 points. Seattle is +494 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down this matchup and offer a prediction.
Storm at Dream Best Bet
Either Team to Win by 6-10 (+255): The Dream have the far better interior play and rebounding, and they should be able to dominate the Storm in transition. However, Seattle is the better shooting team and lost by just 11 the last time they played despite recording its lowest three-point accuracy and committing its most turnovers. Atlanta should win in comfortable, but not blowout, fashion.
Storm at Dream prediction, pick
The Storm started out 3-4, but since then, they’ve gone just 3-21, even with Malonga returning at full strength after missing a few weeks early in the season with a concussion. Seattle ranks third-to-last on offense, sixth-to-last on defense, and fourth-to-last in net rating. While young players like Malonga, Fam, Jade Melbourne, and Flau’jae Johnson have gotten opportunities and have been decent, the Storm simply don’t have the depth or experience to win in an increasingly competitive league. Meanwhile, the Dream traded for Angel Reese in the offseason and were one of four teams with three All-Stars. 2022 first overall pick Rhyne Howard has been extremely impactful on both ends of the floor, and Atlanta is 17-10 with a top-six rating on both offense and defense and the fifth-best net rating overall. The Dream won 12 of their first 16 games and five of their last six, but they were undone by a five-game losing streak near the start of the month.
Getting downhill will be a key for both teams. Despite both teams rostering talented defensive playmakers, including arguably the league’s best defensive rebounder in Reese and a pair of twin towers in Malonga and Fam, these teams have allowed the fifth- and sixth-highest percentages in the restricted area, respectively. That should benefit Atlanta, which attempts the most restricted-area tries per game, and while the Dream have been the least accurate on such looks because Reese has made only 50.2% of her layups, she’s attempted 3.9 more layups per game than the most active close-range shooter on Seattle’s roster (Malonga). Malonga should be even more efficient than usual on such looks, but her efforts are undone slightly by Johnson, who’s been only scantly more accurate than Reese. All in all, Atlanta has out-scored its opponents by 5.9 points per game in the paint, and the Storm have been out-scored by 0.8 points per game.
The Dream should be able to extend their advantage on the boards. Atlanta has been the league’s third-best rebounding team this season, with Reese leading the league in total rebounding percentage, while even Malonga’s efforts (seventh overall in rebounding percentage) haven’t been enough to keep Seattle from ranking 11th. Plus, the Dream have been tremendous in transition, in part because Howard, Reese, and Jordin Canada all rank in the top four in steals per game, and the Storm (especially Johnson, Malonga, and Natisha Hiedeman) have have had major turnover issues. Atlanta has also been one of the best teams at drawing fouls and Seattle one of the worst.
The only area in which the Storm could have a slight advantage is via three-point shooting. Neither of these teams has been particularly reliant on perimeter play, ranking seventh and eighth in three-point attempts per game, but Seattle ranks 10th and the Dream 13th in three-point percentage. The Storm could be more primed for regression to the mean, since of each team’s most active shooters, Natisha Hiedeman has a longer track record of shooting success than Allisha Gray, the Atlanta player with the most anomalously poor shooting this season. Additionally, Seattle has had the better defensive track record against shooters, holding them to just 31.0% accuracy, while opponents have shot 36.9% against the Dream.
Atlanta should be able to do whatever it wants in the paint, even with the Storm’s interior core completely healthy, but the Dream are imperfect defensively, too, especially from the perimeter. Seattle’s ball security will be the primary concern with how dominant Atlanta has been in transition, and it can’t afford to lose the turnover battle, 21-15, like it did the last time these teams faced off on July 9. In the end, I’d slightly lean towards the Storm, who lost that game by only 11 while shooting a season-worst three-for-20 from beyond the arc, to cover the spread. For value, I’ll take either team to win by between six and 10 points, and I think the Dream will win.
