The changes are seismic. Sue and Stewie have gone their separate ways, one to a well-deserved yet still jarring retirement, the other electing to leave her only WNBA home as a free agent to move closer to her childhood home, signing with the New York Liberty.
And so it's impossible to frame this Storm season, which begins Saturday, any other way than the team's effort to carve its identity without those two icons, Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart. They are fortunate to have a third superstar in Jewell Loyd to build — or more accurately, rebuild — around; yet the Storm face a year of mystery, skepticism and lowered expectations, an unfamiliar (though not entirely unprecedented) state of affairs for one of the WNBA's cornerstone franchises.
Which is not such a bad place to be, says coach Noelle Quinn, beginning her second full season after replacing Dan Hughes early in the 2021 season.
