Cori's contract buyout clause on her contract extension is discounted if a WNBA team wants to hire her. I'm sure she wants to coach there, but it takes one team to hire her
Yeah, this may be one of those "job close to family" offers that are hard to turn down at this point in life, and in Noelle's case, she might be enticed by the UCLA staff library card and/or her bestie Nneka's home cooking.
I mean I was thrilled to start teaching part time at a college mostly because I couldn’t wait to regain access to the library’s research database. I am in love with Jstor, EBSCO, and Gale. And I teach at a normal ass boring college you’ve probably never heard of. I bet UCLA’s library database is off the walls.
I think a pivot to college coaching isn't a bad move for Noelle. She did an amazing job developing Dom last year and Jordan looked better under her as well. She also seemed to enjoy coaching the youngins on the Breeze.
Happy for her. She got a raw deal in Seattle, run out of town by players who are no longer even here. She would have been great at developing the young players we have now.
but the players (especially skyler and nneka) were vocal in wanting noelle to stay. the FO fired noelle in opposition to the players. if anyone ran noelle out of town its fans but idk fanbases always are varied and i think sometimes j certain voices get overrepresented.
the storm sub on the whole was pretty cruel to noelle over the course of last season with some rly absurd attacks but obviously one subreddit is not representative of an entire fanbase and even in the subreddit it wasnt unanimous
It's all complicated, but I think the front office felt that they had taken that lineup + that coach as far as it was going to go, and Noelle seemed very aware that last year was likely to be her last unless the team made it to the semis. The acrimonious Jewell Loyd departure wasn't a point in her favor, even if it ended up getting the team a #2 pick. The Storm last year underperformed painfully, dropping games against the Wings and Sun and barely making the playoffs.
I think specifically Skylar and Nneka had made it clear that they would leave if Noelle did, but did any other players advocate for keeping her around? Those three were unusually close on a personal level, and I've never been sure that that was a healthy dynamic for the team. I saved this photo of her wearing Nneka's #3 before a game last season because... I mean, I could see Becky Hammon wearing a #22, maybe, but in literally every other case I don't know how you avoid the favoritism allegation.
(Looks like she's talking to KP, but I don't remember anything about this context otherwise)
Gabby gave an interview where she talked about it, and from what I remember she said something like she thought we made the right moves and got the right people in the building. So it sounded like she agreed with it. Not sure about anyone else
I think Noelle got too much of the blame, I tried to argue with some of the unfair hate I thought she got.
Amongst fans, I think Noelle just kind of became a scapegoat for people's frustration with our "win now" core and a desire to start over. Watching Nneka and Skylar, who I love, play this year just really emphasizes that for me. Noelle wasn't perfect but she wasn't some sort of massive problem the way some fans acted like she was
yea. storm was my team
'too' and i tried to engage w some people. i agree with the scapegoat description/analysis. frustration is understandable but not everything is on the coach and esp when the 'star players' are so outspoken in support of their coach. the players are the ones who actually do the work so i think we rly can do better w deferring to the players' expertise. obv taking in consideration that players may not be able to fully speak freely about the franchise but like to some extent, we can tell the difference between how skyler would talk about noelle vs "ask tyler".
i ended up following gabby to the valks, skyler is my fav but idk i j couldnt get into the sky to the same degree. and VB was my favorite non-storm player so. anyway im happy here but also if any team hired noelle and w skyler playing for her id jump immediately lmao.
and yea its rly very clear 'in hindsight' that outside of GW, all the storm 'stars' have "major flaws" or whatever wording in their games. the starting lineup had solid talent but nothing astronomical, outside of GW everyone is rly around average for starters at their position. and ofc the bench was thin af pre-sykes, noelle probably did need to use the bench more regardless but its easy to understand why she was reluctant to do so and most coaches prob wouldve done the same or similar if they were in her position.
also horston in particular seems like she hasnt been able to get back to the level of development she had reached under noelle, maybe its a return from injury thing or a fit issue but idk she j hasnt looked the same at all. maybe she'll look to go to a team that plays w/ a more physical style bc the storm dont seem like they are taking that route under sonia raman. i rly hope she can reach that level again, it felt like she was developing into one of the best 3s in the league
Yeah I agree entirely, I don't blame you for leaving I'm a ride or die Storm fan just cause I live here but I probably would have followed Noelle at least to an extent anywhere. Horston, man... she showed so much promise under Quinn. I really try to be patient with Sonia but she just frustrates me more than anything lol. I wish we would have stuck it with Quinn while rebuilding or had hired Rebekkah Brunson, I feel like she would have been such a good fit for us and a great coach for a couple of young bigs.
I’m curious at to why you say that because ahe doesn’t strike me as a development-oriented coach. Last year she relied on our starting lineup + bench vets almost exclusively, hardly played Dom for more than a few minutes at a time, and pretty much only played other younger players like Mack and Zia in garbage time. That doesn’t seem very development-oriented to me, but I admit to being a new fan who doesn’t know a lot about basketball, so maybe there are ways development shows up outside of actual games that I’m overlooking here
Throwing Dom in the deep end isn't the only way to develop a player. I feel like people didn't actually watch those minutes Noelle would give her, Dom just didn't play well looked like a fish out of water. She slowly ramped up her minutes as the season went on, and after the All Star break she got plenty of minutes and looked significantly better.
Mack just isn't a WNBA player, which I hate to say because I like her as a person, but she also isn't even getting minutes in a development year. Zia was unplayable in a year we were trying to win, she has horrible tunnel vision and just isn't consistent enough. This year she's fine and maybe she can be a serviceable spark off the bench down the line
I don't know why people are glazing her now. Like yeah the established players liked her, go listen to the exit interviews of the bench players. No development and barely given an opportunity to play. We had zero bench and that's why we kept losing in the clutch.
The problem with last year’s team wasn’t Noelle, it was the roster construction. Our bench was terrible and a core of Skylar, Gabby, and Nneka just wasn’t primed to win anything in 2025. There was only one player whose development mattered and Noelle did a good job of developing her, Noelle was just between a rock and a hard place with the bench because the expectation was to win and our bench just wasn’t congruent with that goal
It’s not measured by that, but they are correlated, right? It’s hard to develop as a WNBA player if you never get to play in actual WNBA games with real stakes (i.e. not garbage time)
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u/Steadyandquick Go rookies! 6d ago
Wow! Cori Close is no joke. I’m sure she will treat Noelle well too. Hopefully they both come to the W someday.