⛈️ SONIA RAMAN NAMED STORM COACH

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!