The Seattle Storm are having a rough season, but Flau’jae Johnson keeps giving them something to build around. The No.8 pick out of LSU has quickly become one of the most reliable pieces on this roster, and she made that clear again after a loss to the Chicago Sky, the same team that had every chance to draft her and passed.
Johnson dropped 25 points on 11-of-17 shooting in the 95-90 loss, adding 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals. Afterward, she made no secret of what fueled that kind of night.
“I felt like Chicago passed me up in the draft,” Johnson said in a post-game conference. “As a competitor, I’ve got a chip on my shoulder. And I’m going to have that for the rest of my career. I think that’s like you’ve got to find ways to motivate you, and that’s definitely one of the motivating factors.”
Chicago actually had the fifth pick that night and took Gabriela Jaquez instead, three selections before Golden State grabbed Johnson at No.8, only to trade her to Seattle that same evening. That draft-day snub clearly hasn’t left her mind.
Johnson also had a lighter moment to share from the same game. It was about Chicago’s undrafted rookie Sydney Taylor, who put up 17 points and 5 rebounds on Johnson.
“She scored on me, I scored on her,” Johnson said. “I was talking to her telling her, ‘Damn you nice, where you go to college?'”
That mix of edge and warmth sums up how Johnson has approached her whole rookie year. She’s averaging 12.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.2 steals a game, leading Seattle in rebounding while sitting third on the team in scoring.
It’s rare for a team to lean this heavily on a rookie, but Seattle’s numbers make the case clearly. The Storm’s rebounding rates spike when Johnson is on the floor and dip noticeably when she sits.
Her value isn’t just about crashing the glass, either. She’s shooting an efficient clip from the field, giving Seattle a reliable scoring option to stretch opposing defenses alongside her rebounding and defense.
That two-way production stands out even more given the shape of the roster around her.
The Seattle Storm Have Struggled With Injury And Roster Issues This Season
Seattle lost defensive anchor Ezi Magbegor to a serious foot injury before the season even started, gutting a frontcourt that already leaned on her heavily. On top of that, the Storm lost most of last year’s scoring core to free agency, leaving rookies like Johnson and No. 3 pick Awa Fam, plus second-year center Dominique Malonga, to carry far more of the offensive load than most first or second-year players are asked to.
Malonga, who went through her own rookie struggles a year ago, has noticed how quickly Johnson has adjusted to the mental grind of a losing season.
“She’s a competitor, she wants to win, we all want to win, and we are on a losing streak right now, and sometimes it’s hard and you just get down on yourself,” Malonga said. “But she got that you can’t just think about the last game, you got to move forward quickly. She’s really hard on herself, she would get down, and now she’s always coming back the next day with a smile.”
That resilience matters, because the roster still has real gaps to solve. Seattle lacks a true high-volume three-point shooter, something opposing defenses exploit late in games, and the Storm have developed a pattern of building big leads before fading in the fourth quarter, a common issue for a team this young. A first-year head coach in Sonia Raman adds another layer of adjustment on top of it all.
Seattle’s next real measuring stick comes after the All-Star break. The league pauses for the All-Star Weekend on July 24-25 in Chicago, and Johnson, Fam, and Malonga will use that stretch to reset before a second half of the season that determines whether this rebuild starts showing up in the standings.