Jewell Loyd Asks Out of Storm After Investigation Finds No Wrongdoing

Seattle Storm guard Jewell Loyd has requested a trade from the team where she has played for a decade and won two WNBA championships.

The report of Loyd’s request broke hours after the Storm released the findings of an investigation into harassment and bullying allegations commissioned by the team that found no violations.

The Chicago Sun-Times first reported the news.

Loyd was the one who filed the complaint against the coaching staff (though it accounted for the experiences of multiple players), and whether she would stay in Seattle hinged on “a belief that relationships within the organization could be mended,” according to the Sun-Times.

“The Storm recently received internal allegations of potential workplace policy violations,” the team said in a statement before Loyd’s announcement. “The organization retained an outside investigator to conduct an impartial investigation into the allegations. The investigation has been completed and there were no findings of policy violations or any discrimination, harassment, or bullying.” The team did not respond immediately to questions from Front Office Sports.

Noelle Quinn helms the Storm coaching staff, with former WNBA player Ebony Hoffman, former WNBA head coach Pokey Chatman, and Perry Huang as assistants this past season. Huang has since departed to be an assistant for the South Bay Lakers.

Quinn has been head coach of the Storm since 2021. She played for the Storm from 2016 to 2018, winning one championship, before retiring and becoming an assistant for the team in 2019. Quinn has a 74–68 record as the Storm head coach, and won the first Commissioner’s Cup in 2021. The team announced Quinn signed a multiyear contract extension in September 2023. Huang had been with the team since 2021, and Hoffman and Chatman joined in 2022.

Loyd signed a two-year contract extension in September 2023 that made her the second-highest-paid player in the league last season with a payout higher than $245,000. Her resigning played a huge role in attracting top transfers Skylar Diggins-Smith and Nneka Ogwumike, as did the team opening a dedicated practice facility in the spring. This season, the Storm ranked fifth heading into the playoffs, but they were swept by the defending champion Las Vegas Aces in the first round. The team finished with a 25–15 record after going 8–7 to end the season.

After the sweep, Quinn said, “I will be better. Our team will be better. Effort will never, ever be a thing for us again.”

The Storm drafted Loyd No. 1 in the 2015 draft, and the team won championships in 2018 and 2020 with a core of Loyd, Sue Bird, and Breanna Stewart, who both left the team in 2022 for retirement and New York, respectively.

In an ideal world for Loyd, she could have swiftly found her way out of Seattle through the Golden State Valkyries expansion draft Friday. But the deadline for teams to submit their list of six protected players passed on Nov. 25, and it’s unlikely the Storm would have opted to waive their six-time All-Star. Those lists aren’t public, but if Seattle did happen to leave Loyd unprotected, she would easily become the anchor of the new Bay Area franchise, or could get traded through the Valkyries to another city.
Loyd isn’t the only part of its Big Three who could be leaving. Ogwumike, the president of the players’ association, becomes an unrestricted free agent in January, as do five others including Gabby Williams, who has been outspoken about the size of the league’s salaries.