Photo by Kurt Howard
Seattle Storm star Sue Bird (10) goes airborne on defense. Bird was in on all four of the Storm's WNBA championships.
Storm breezed to four WNBA titles
By Tim Clinton
When Clay Bennett snatched away the Seattle Sonics in 2008, he did condescend to leave some important things behind.
Aside from the Sonics name, records and trophies, he did not take away the associated women's basketball team known as the Seattle Storm. Buying him out of snagging the Storm has turned out to be a very good thing for the city.
The Storm already had one Women's National Basketball Association championship under its belt won in 2004 at the time and has gone on to capture three more since.
Seattle grabbed the top trophy again in 2010 and followed up with championships in 2018 and 2020.
The Storm team has qualified for the WNBA playoffs in 19 of its 25 seasons in all.
It shares the WNBA record of four championships with the now out of business Houston Comets and the Minnesota Lynx.
Seattle has never lost a WNBA championship series.
The Storm replaced the Seattle Reign, a charter member of the American Basketball League. The Reign existed from 1996 through December 1998 when the league folded.
The Storm burst on the scene two years later but struggled to a 6-26 record in its expansion season.
But that allowed them to draft Australian standout Lauren Jackson, who was 19 years old at the time.
The Storm selected another future standout named Sue Bird from the University of Connecticut the next year.
Seattle posted a 20-14 record in 2004 with both Jackson and Bird present and healthy for the first time, then swept Minnesota in the first round before taking the West Finals over the Sacramento Monarchs, two games to one.
The Storm won the overall WNBA Finals by the same 2-1 margin over the Connecticut Sun, with team member Betty Lennox earning the series' Most Valuable Player award.
Seattle won it all again in the summer of 2010 after going 28-6 during the regular season behind the third time WNBA MVP efforts of Jackson.
The Storm followed up by sweeping the Los Angeles Sparks in the first round and did the same to the Phoenix Mercury in the West Finals and to the Atlanta Dream in the WNBA championship series.
That already gave the franchise a Seattle major sports record two championships at the time, but the Storm has tacked on two more since.
With high draft picks Jewel Lloyd and Breanna Stewart teaming up with Bird, the Storm won the No. 1 seed out of the regular season with a 26-8 record in 2018.
They opened the playoffs with a double bye into the WNBA semifinals, where they won a tough five game series against the Mercury. They swept the Washington Mystics in the WNBA Finals with Stewart honored as the MVP.
The fourth championship was won in a 2020 season played entirely at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. because of the COVID pandemic.
The Storm swept its way through the playoffs and the WNBA Finals once again, taking all three championship series games over the Las Vegas Aces.
A move into the Storm's current home of the Climate Pledge Arena came in 2022.
Seattle hopes for more big things in the future at the state-of-the-art facility located in Seattle Center.
Photo by Jeff Clinton
The Seattle Storm gets set to tip off against the Minnesota Lynx.