SONIA MAKES HISTORY

After a month-long wait, the Seattle Storm has a new head coach.

On Oct. 24, ESPN reported that the Storm will be hiring New York Liberty assistant head coach, Sonia Raman, to be their head coach. And on October 29, the team made it official.

Raman succeeds Noelle Quinn, who was head coach from 2021 to 2025. Raman has decades of coaching experience, and before joining the Liberty, she worked as an assistant coach with the Memphis Grizzlies in the NBA.

This move by the Storm is historic, as Raman becomes the first Indian head coach in WNBA history. Upon the news of her hiring, her former players such as Izzy Harrison and Ja Morant expressed excitement about the news. To learn more about Sonia and her journey, check out this interview!

For Seattle fans, they’ll be getting a coach that is all about the details and building great working relationships with her players.

“She was big on watching film and breaking the defense down into what’s going to be available for the offense,” Celtics forward Xavier Tillman told Noa Dalzell of SB Nation, “as well as the work. I could tell you several times when she was down there, rebounded for me, she was in the trenches with me, just putting in work and stuff like that in the mornings before shootaround. She was definitely a big part of my development.“

Storm management has made the continued development of Dominique Malonga a key part of their future and once the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is signed, they can begin planning to build the roster for Raman.

With an expansion draft looming and plenty of free agency questions that need to be answered, it’s going to be a fascinating winter in the Pacific Northwest.

We’ll have a full breakdown on the new hire on the next edition of Tempestade Talk!

THE WOMEN OF THE YEAR IN THE WNBA

On Oct. 27, Glamour Magazine released their annual “Women of the Year” edition. The special edition highlights luminaries such as Ms. Rachel, Demi Moore, Tyla, Pat McGrath, and Rachel Zegler. The WNBA was one of the honorees, and we got to see five stories come together.

The Indiana Fever were the most resilient team in 2025. They were bombarded with injuries throughout the season and the departure of DeWanna Bonner in June, but the team powered on. One of the players key to their success this year was Lexie Hull. Hull took on a bigger role and fought through injuries of her own to be the team’s third-best player in their playoff run. In her feature story, she spoke about rivalries in the W, playing with Caitlin Clark on the Fever and Angel Reese in Unrivaled, and everyone in the league coming together, even amidst the team and personal rivalries. With the Fever’s rise in popularity, Hull has become one of the more recognizable players in the WNBA. Her game has kept up with her fame, and as she continues her career, she’ll have even more opportunities to shine on the biggest stages.

For Satou and Nyara Sabally, this year was all about new experiences. Satou moved to a new team in Phoenix and became a more effective leader on and off the basketball court. Nyara dealt with injuries in 2025, but she learned more about herself this year and will be working this off-season to come back better than ever next season.

The Sabally sisters embody the WNBA's sisterhood, passion, and competitiveness. Their continued journeys will be something fans continue to keep their eyes on here in the United States, in Germany, and around the world.

Jonquel Jones fully stepped into superstardom in 2025. The 2024 Finals MVP stole the show at the 2025 Met Gala in May and can be her whole self in public. After years of being ignored by the mainstream, JJ is one of the more recognizable players in the game and understands the importance of breaking through in the ways that she has:

“When you come from a place where being yourself can be considered a bad thing, it feels really good to get validation from the world in general to really say, ‘No, it’s okay to live your truth. It’s okay to be who you are. Not just in the WNBA, but even just living in New York City. I see it everywhere. I see people being themselves and being genuinely happy and not feeling that they have to shy away from who they are.”

And for Napheesa Collier, she’s been the talk of the town throughout 2025. Phee began the year with Unrivaled, and their success has shaken up the women’s basketball landscape on the court and in the boardrooms. She ended the year by shaking things up one more time, laying out the failures of Cathy Engelbert and WNBA leadership.

Collier wears a million hats, and in her feature story she spoke about juggling motherhood, how she uses her skills to help compete against some of the best players in basketball, etc. With the support of fellow unions, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and the fans, all eyes are on the WNBA’s CBA negotiations. Collier understands the stakes of this battle and the ramifications it will have across the board:

“If we give in, we’re not only doing a disservice to us, but we’re doing a disservice to where we have gotten in women’s sports. We really have no choice but to stand strong again, not just for the present, but for the future of our league too.”

HIGH STAKES BETS

The sports world was shaken up in the early hours of Oct. 23 when the federal government arrested a current NBA player, retired player, and Hall of Famer/current head coach in Portland for various illegal gambling related activities. It’s called to mind the relationship between professional sports leagues and the NCAA to gambling in various forms.

There’s been SO much money infused into leagues thanks to sports betting since its legalization in 2018. It’s a dynamic Golden State Warriors star, Draymond Green spoke about following a game against the Denver Nuggets on Oct. 23:

This entire saga brought to mind the WNBA. The league has been an official partner of Fanduel since 2017 and began partnering with DraftKings in 2024. On the team side, the Las Vegas Aces have a partnership with BetMGM, the Washington Mystics have one with ESPN BET, the Phoenix Mercury have one with Bally’s, and the Indiana Fever have a partnership with Fanduel and Bet365. Not to mention: the betting companies have agreements with the league’s television partners that let them integrate their services into programming. A lot of partnerships, but a lot of money coming in as well.

Taking all of this into account, I thought about a conversation I watched at the 2024 WNBA Draft in Brooklyn. That night, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was asked twice about sports betting. In her first answer, she spoke first about maintaining the sport’s integrity before discussing the infusion of new fans (sports bettors) who may not have previously been engaged with the WNBA. Her second answer spoke to a more pressing issue.

At the time of the draft, former NBA player Jontay Porter was banned for life from the league after placing millions of dollars in bets and sharing privileged information about his health to bettors so they could place bets on him to underperform his listed line and cash in. There were also stories surrounding betting and Major League Baseball as well.

Commissioner Engelbert recently weighed in on the matter:

“Do I worry about things like that? Sure, and everybody should in sports. But I do think it's happening around us, and if we're not cognizant of what's going on and how that can benefit the viewership of the league and things like that, so we don't want to leave that on the table, but we want to do it in the right way with the right guardrails around integrity. We have not, to my knowledge, had issues on that, but we'll continue to monitor it for sure.”

As sports betting continues to shape society, leagues must ensure the integrity of the games they present to the public. Leagues have to keep bad actors away from the game, remind players to absolutely not bet on their own sport, and to be responsible in the choices they make.

With the millions coming in from sports betting, there’s no turning back. Everyone just has to live with it the best way they can.

At Black Rosie Media, we love to give flowers to other writers and creators in the women’s basketball community.

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