Consider a team's two paths for improvement: It can mend a weakness, try to be less bad at the things it is bad at; or it can shore up a strength, lean in to what it already does right. Most teams, hemmed in by strict roster limits, don't attempt either at the WNBA trade deadline. But the trades dreamt up by restless reporters and fans tend to follow the first logic. Just figure out what a team is missing, who can provide it, et voila: A mock trade! Still, there's something to be said for having a team identity. While the Seattle Storm's deadline acquisition didn't actually happen in the trade market, they still made a deadline-day statement on Tuesday when they signed free agent Gabby Williams for the rest of the season. The Storm know what they do well, and their plan is to do more of it.
The 27-year-old Williams returns to the WNBA with a little more respect on her name than she enjoyed the last time she was stateside. Is that her growth as a player? Or is it a case of the hype catching up to reality? Williams introduced herself to a global audience in France's tight gold-medal game against the U.S. earlier this month. But to the eyes of Sky and Storm and UConn fans who had watched her for years, she was playing the hits. As a pure athlete, Williams rivaled the shifty Kahleah Copper and Brittney Sykes for best in the league. She could always be counted on for one or two startling defensive plays each game. Few other 5-foot-11 guards can start a play five full steps behind the basketball and finish it with a block off the backboard.
Williams has been a compelling player for other, less likely reasons. Sabreena Merchant at The Athletic correctly located her at the center of the league's looming labor battles. After playing her first three WNBA seasons with the Sky, Williams took a year off from the league to play with the French Olympic team in 2021. (She planned to return after the Olympics, but the Sky put her on the full-season suspended list, which led to a falling-out.) The Storm acquired her in an offseason trade, and she played the 2022 season with them as a starter. But when she returned to Seattle for the 2023 season, it wasn't exactly by design. Restricted from joining her WNBA team late due to the league's new rules against prioritizing overseas club obligations, Williams had no plans to play for the Storm until she suffered a concussion just before her French league's finals began in April. Her French club team suspended her contract, leaving her eligible to sign with a WNBA team. “I'm only here because I got concussed,” she said, memorably, in her introductory press conference in Seattle. After the Olympics, Winsidr's Rachel Galligan reported that Williams would only return to the WNBA if a team promised not to give her "core designation," the WNBA's equivalent of a franchise tag, which would restrict her options next season, too.
Williams's WNBA future looks murky. Her WNBA present looks brighter. She makes the league's most versatile defensive team even scarier on that side of the ball. She'll share a backcourt with another excellent athlete in Skylar Diggins-Smith. She is not, however, a wholly satisfying answer to the questions facing the Storm in the second half. As often as I am awed by Seattle's defense, stunned into silence by an Ezi Magbegor block or the precision of a switch, I do find myself wondering how this Storm team might come back from an early 15- or 20-point deficit, the kind most modern basketball teams are built to withstand. If the Liberty or Aces or Lynx wanted to dick around for a half in the playoffs, they probably could. Seattle's 28.7 three-point percentage is lowest in the league. The worst-case scenario is not hard to imagine; in fact, it probably looks exactly like the fourth quarter of Sunday's game against the Fever, when the Storm couldn't hope to match an unexpected shooting barrage from Lexie Hull.
Williams's gifts don't disappear on offense. She's a determined driver and can make plays for teammates. But she is also just a 24.8 percent outside shooter in her WNBA career. The last time she tried to take a three, it was, famously, a two. Allow Breanna Stewart to illustrate:
Early in the season, Seattle's shooting struggles seemed like they might resolve themselves. Chalk it up to free agents still finding their footing. Chalk it up to bad luck. Jewell Loyd, whose three-point numbers are at career lows, was due for some regression to the mean. But maybe this is who the Storm are, and maybe it's who they're content to be. Call the Gabby Williams signing a vote of self-confidence. Let the Storm be the Storm.
