Skylar Diggins-Smith signed with the Seattle Storm because she wanted to play with Jewell Loyd.
That, combined with Nneka Ogwumike signing with the Storm, made Seattle an easy decision.
“I want to play with Jewell,” she said. “Trying to figure out how to play with players that you hate guarding and playing against, and Jewell and Nneka are at the top of that list.”
“I connected with one person very early in the process, and that was Jewell,” Diggins-Smith continued. “If I wasn’t talking to Jewell, I was talking to Nneka. Those were the two players that I talked to the most. … I want to be around winners. I think it’s really important at this point of my career to be around people that know me, and [Nneka] knows me and I know her.”
Loyd and Diggins-Smith played together for one season at Notre Dame. Diggins-Smith and Ogwumike have known each other longer, having at one time talked about playing for the same university when they were still high school recruits. Diggins-Smith went on to play at Notre Dame while Ogwumike went to Stanford.
All three have played together at different points, between All-Star Games and USA Basketball. The relationships built during those times made the decisions easy.
“I think it’s important to really highlight what Sky said about wanting to play with Jewell,” Ogwumike said. “I had conversations about playing with Jewell. We didn’t know if it was going to be in Seattle or not. And me and Skylar, we’ve always been talking since we were kids about ‘We’re going to end up on the same team someday.’”
The expectation, of course, is for the team to get back to competing for championships. It’s something that Ogwumike signed on for, as well as Diggins-Smith.
For Diggins-Smith, it’s about “continuing the legacy” of Seattle, with four championships won between 2004 and 2020.
“I think when you have three people who are selfless like that, three people who are dangerously disciplined like that and respect the game and you have a coach (Noelle Quinn) that also embodies all of those characteristics, you can expect good basketball played the right way,” Ogwumike said.
Diggins-Smith also said that Seattle has been “thoughtful” in what they’ve built, with both the franchise and the team’s practice facility, which isn’t shared with another team.
“It’s very thoughtful, I’ll just say, in how it’s built. What we need, what I need at this stage in my life,” Diggins-Smith said. “The one-stop shop where you don’t have to share it with an NBA or G League affiliate team. You come in and it really does feel like yours… We need all those resources and this team had the best of the best, top to bottom.”
