Goodbye Jade Melbourne

Seattle traded away Melbourne for a future third-round pick to the Mystics.

On Saturday, early afternoon, the Seattle Storm made a somewhat surprising move when they announced that they had traded away second-year player, 21-year-old Jade Melbourne. The trade sends Melbourne to the Washington Mystics for a future third-round pick during the 2025 WNBA Draft. Melbourne was initially a third-round pick from the 2022 draft when she was just 19 and she made her WNBA debut last season in 2023.

Seattle had encouraged Melbourne to continue to develop as a point guard during her time in her native country of Australia. Jade found lots of success in the WNBL. Over this past season, Melbourne averaged 16.3 PPG, 7.6 APG, 5.1 RPG, and 1.7 SPG in 19 games for the Canberra Capitals. Melbourne has quickly become one of the top point guards in Australia.

That success had not yet translated to the WNBA level. But there was still a lot of hope that it would, especially because Melbourne wasn’t even 22 years old yet. And, in theory, the Storm could have kept her on a cheap rookie-scale contract for an additional three years.

But plans seemed to have changed. The 2023 season was a season about growth and development. The Storm kept four rookies on their opening-day roster, which is almost unheard of in this era of the WNBA. Everything changed for this season when Seattle was able to add Skylar Diggins-Smith and Nneka Ogwumike in the off-season.

With Nneka entering her 13th WNBA season, Skylar entering her 12th season, and Jewell her 10th, the time to win is NOW. Since the team can only carry 11 players on their roster due to salary cap restraints, they need to roster as many players that will have an immediate impact on the team in 2024. They are going to need every complimentary piece to compete against the top teams like the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces.

Seattle simply no longer had the luxury of developing multiple younger prospects. While unfortunate for Jade, the trade appears to be good news for the Storm’s most recent draft pick, point guard Nika Mühl.

Early on during training camp, Coach Quinn was asked if Jade Melbourne and Nika Mühl would be competing for a roster spot, likely for the team’s backup point guard position. At the time, Quinn downplayed that. Said that it didn’t necessarily mean it would be an either/or situation. And that she was also excited to see them playing on the floor together with one running the point and the other out on the wing.

Ultimately, that never came to be. Instead, the team shipped Melbourne away for a third-round pick. In a league where first-round picks frequently get cut from their teams. A third-round pick has little to no value, but it’s still better than cutting a player and receiving absolutely nothing.

Looking over the remaining roster, this trade also appears to be good news for Kiana Williams. Williams, the Storm’s 2021 second-round draft pick may have also earned a spot on the final roster. The former Stanford point guard had an impressive performance off the bench during the team’s preseason game against the Phoenix Mercury. Williams scored nine points on 3-6 FG shooting including 3-5 FG from beyond the three-point arc.

The tricky part of all of this is that the trade of Jade Melbourne still doesn’t solve Seattle’s salary cap roster problems. After the team recently cut Alaina Coates, Kaela Davis, and Quay Miller, their roster was reduced from 16 to 13 players; leaving two more cuts to go by Monday, May 13th.

In my last game recap, I discussed the “Tough Decisions Ahead” regarding roster cuts. The team is not able to cut two of Jade Melbourne, Kiana Williams, or Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu and then keep Joyner Holmes, Victoria Vivians, and Nika Mühl. Keeping those last three will put them over the salary cap. That means one of those three MUST be cut on Monday. Even though the team traded away Jade Melbourne and did not bring back another player. They are not able to cut Kiana or Dulcy to get under the required salary cap.

It makes absolutely no sense for the team to cut Nika Mühl. Even less so now that they’ve traded away Jade Melbourne. They will have to cut Joyner or Victoria. That is unless something stunning happens like a last-minute trade of a player who has a larger guaranteed contract.

Lastly, the team could still cut one of their non-guaranteed contract players and pick up a different player from another team’s roster, especially once final roster cuts happen across the entire league. If you recall, this is how the Storm brought on Mercedes Russell back in 2018. That is something to keep an eye on as we enter the first week of the WNBA season.

Notes:
Photo Credits to Seattle Storm/WNBA Photography.
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