Storm Draft Nika Mühl, Mackenzie Holmes in WNBA Draft

It's tradition. Seattle adds another UConn Point Guard through the draft.

Despite not having a first-round pick I thought the Seattle Storm did very well on Draft Night. A lot of what I wrote in my pre-draft article came to fruition. With the 14th overall pick and the second selection of the 2nd round, the Seattle Storm drafted Nika Mühl, 5’11” PG from the University of Connecticut.

Nika Mühl - UConn - 5’11” Guard
Career Stats: 29.4 MPG, 5.8 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 5.2 APG, and 1.4 SPG

One of Seattle’s biggest question marks on their roster is who will be playing the backup point guard for the team. The addition of Skylar Diggins-Smith immediately puts the Storm in a much better position than last season. But Skylar is more than a year removed from her last WNBA action after missing the 2023 season to give birth to her second child. Knowing Skylar’s competitive nature, she’d probably love to play 35+ minutes per game but the Storm would be smart not to have her push too much early on during the 40-game season. If Seattle is going to get where they want to be and have a chance at a 5th WNBA Championship, they’re going to need Skylar full of energy and ready to ball out in the playoffs. And so the team needs to be able to trust a backup point guard to be able to come in and play 10-15 MPG. Nika Mühl potentially gives the Storm that option.

“Her versatility sticks out to us. Her ability to stretch the floor, being a 40% three-point shooter. Her size. We saw what she did defending multiple star players in the (NCAA) post-season. Also her mind for the game.” Coach Quinn said of her newest draft pick.

I asked Coach to expand on Nika’s defensive ability.

“What’s intriguing is her size. I’m the height police. 5’11”—guarding JuJu, guarding Caitlin at the end of the year. Being solid defensively and getting those assignments not only on-ball but off-ball. Her presence, her leadership, and her voice. Knowing that she had some tough assignments, being able to showcase her staying in place, her length, her ability to be solid and take correct angles. At the end of the day, to marry that with what she can do offensively, it’s very intriguing.” Quinn told me.

Déjà vu

Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways. Sue Bird is a basketball legend. She is arguably the greatest pass-first point guard the game of basketball has ever seen. Before she went on to become a four-time WNBA Champion and lead a Hall-of-Fame career in Seattle, she was the lead guard for the University of Connecticut. Wearing number 10 on her Huskies jersey and being coached by the great Geno Auriemma. In 2002, she was selected #1 overall by the Seattle Storm.

Fast forward to 2024, and once again history repeats itself. One of the Connecticut Huskies’ best pass-first point guards, a player that broke Sue Bird’s collegiate assist record (678 assists to Bird’s 585), who also wore #10 at UConn has been drafted by the Seattle Storm. You can’t help but smile when neat things like that happen.

When Holly Rowe asked Mühl about that immediately after being drafted, Nika nervously laughed and stated it would be huge shoes to fill. She’s not wrong. But it’s also important for Storm fans and Nika herself, not to put that type of pressure on her.

Nobody can replace Sue Bird. Sue Bird isn’t just the best point guard the Seattle Storm have ever had. She’s the best point guard the WNBA has ever had and the league has been around for nearly 30 years! And as I mentioned above, I’d argue Bird is the greatest pass-first true point guard basketball has ever seen and that includes the NBA as well.

Mühl will have an opportunity, not to try and replicate Bird’s legacy but to hopefully create one of her own. She is a fierce competitor. She’s an excellent defender winning the Big East Defensive Player of the Year Award during her Sophomore and Junior seasons in college. Nika isn’t quite the scorer Bird was, with her best season averaging 7.1 PPG her Junior year (Bird’s best was 14.4 PPG her senior season). But with that said, Mühl focused hard on her three-point shot development for her final year in college and improved to above 40% from beyond the arc. A 3-AND-D specialist is becoming more and more important in basketball. Alysha Clark is a player who really added that to her game later on in her career which allowed her to be a key cog to three championship teams (two in Seattle and one in Las Vegas).

Lastly, as noted above, Mühl set the All-Time Assists record for both a single season and for a career at UConn. The same college that has consistently recruited some of the greatest women's basketball players over the past 20+ years. She does a great job of distributing the ball and finding her teammates. Her ability to pass the ball and defend will allow Nika to have a solid chance to make the Storm’s final roster.

Nika’s Media Post-Draft Press Conference

*Note - the audio quality isn’t the best but this is worth the watch to hear more from the Seattle Storm’s newest draft pick.

Smart Use of Assets

Mühl wasn’t the only player Seattle selected on Monday night. They also took Mackenzie Holmes, a 6’3” Forward out of Indiana with the 26th overall pick, the second pick of the third round.

Mackenzie Holmes - Indiana - 6’3” Forward
Career Stats: 27.2 MPG, 17.2 PPG, 6.7 RPG, and 1.7 BPG

Holmes is Indiana’s All-Time leading scorer with 2,530 points during her five-year career. She was a consistent starter during her final four years on the team. Mackenzie does a lot of her scoring down low but she has really good hands to catch her teammate’s passes and she also demonstrates nice footwork. She doesn’t just settle with one singular type of move down in the low post. She reminds me a bit of Megan Gustafson with their ability to score around the basket. Gustafson was a star in college at Iowa before Caitlin Clark and has developed into a modest WNBA player. She just had her best season so far in 2023, averaging roughly 8.0 PPG and 4.0 RPG in about 15 MPG off the bench for the Phoenix Mercury.

I think Holmes could potentially project as a similar player. She and Gustafson are both listed at 6’3” so they have pretty good size and they both have good footwork and a strong ability to score at the rim.

A few days before the WNBA Draft, Holmes announced that she would be taking care of a lingering knee issue and having surgery which meant she’d be unable to play in the upcoming 2024 WNBA season. But she hoped a WNBA team would still consider drafting her and give her the chance to make the team in 2025. The Seattle Storm did just that. You can read her full statement in the image below.

This brings me back to the topic of this section, the “smart use of assets”. That’s what I see with this selection. I specifically talked about this before the draft that I could envision the Storm’s front office looking to make a selection with a player that they could draft and stash for a year. They’ve had some success doing this in the recent past, most notably with Ezi Magbegor in 2019 but also by drafting Jade Melbourne in the third round of the 2022 WNBA Draft. Of course, sometimes it doesn’t always work out. They did this with Kitija Laksa in 2020 and she ended up not making the final roster in 2021. Laksa would later state that she regretted agreeing to that decision to not come over during her specific draft year.

But back to the selection of Holmes. There were four International players projected to be drafted along with two collegiate stars who would be out with injuries (Elizabeth Kitley and Mackenzie Holmes). Kitley was taken two selections before Holmes. All four International players were gone by the 20th overall pick including three of them being gone before Seattle had their first pick at 14.

Holmes was the last of those six “stashable” players still available when Seattle was on the clock in the third round. I commend Storm General Manager Talisa Rhea and the entire front office staff because I believe this was a smart move. I think it’s a much better use of their third-round asset to take a flyer on an injured player who may have been drafted in the Top 20 had she not announced she was headed for immediate knee surgery.

We know how difficult it is for rookies to make a final roster spot in the WNBA. It’s been made even worse by having the salary cap disproportionate to the updated player’s wages. It’s something I’ve touched on multiple times before. When the 2020 CBA was created it did a great job of increasing player salaries. Top players went from making $115,000 to now making around $250,000. But the salary cap has not increased enough by comparison which now means several WNBA teams can only carry 11 roster spots instead of 12. It honestly should be 13 or 14 but that’s a whole other article.

Even before the 2024 WNBA Draft we knew Seattle’s roster was already very tight and it’s possible zero rookies this season will make the final roster. Instead of spending their pick on a player who would likely have a 0.0001% chance of making the roster in 2024, they are taking a flyer on a talented injured player and giving her an opportunity to make the team in 2025. The Storm have six guaranteed contracts on the books for 2024 but only two (as of right now) that carry over to 2025. The team will continue to balance their roster and build it but for a player like Mackenzie Holmes, while it’s no guarantee, she has a significantly higher chance of making the roster in 2025 than she would, if she was healthy, and if trying to make the team this season.

I like the Storm using their third-round picks for players they can defer to a later year with the “Draft and Stash” strategy. It’s something we’ve seen them do in two out of the past three WNBA Drafts and it’s a trend I’d like to see continue moving forward if it makes the most sense for the team.

A Battle Between Nika and Jade?

One of the most interesting potential stories from training camp will be the battle for the final roster spots on the team. I think it’s safe to say that there are seven spots that should be 100% locked up. The six guaranteed contracts (Jewell, Skylar, Nneka, Ezi, Sami, and Mercedes) and Jordan Horston who is projected to be the team’s starting Small Forward. Beyond that, I would think the other two rookies from 2023 - Jade Melbourne and Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu are pretty good bets for two reasons. They both showed some decent promise whether in games or during practice. And the fact that they are both under club control on rookie-scale contracts through the 2026 WNBA season.

However, by drafting Nika Mühl, there could be a scenario where the team opts to keep Mühl and some other players at other positions and then cut Jade. Or keep Jade and cut Nika.

But before Storm fans get too concerned, I want to point out the media conversation we had with GM Talisa Rhea and Coach Noelle Quinn after the draft. Another reporter, specifically asked Rhea if Mühl and Jade would be competing for that one spot as a backup PG to Skylar Diggins-Smith and Rhea stated that wasn’t necessarily going to be the case. They are open to evaluating their entire roster and having the best 11 players on their team.

I followed that question up by asking Coach Quinn if she could envision a scenario where Nika was running the one and Jade was playing as a backup two (Shooting Guard).

“Exactly that. The ability to interchange those positions. A lot of times what we do is play freely, playing in space and not really having specific positions. Both of them on the court, with Nika’s size, that helps tremendously. Pushing the ball up and having Jade run on the wing, things like that. That lives within the way we like to play.” Coach Noelle Quinn told me.

It should be noted that Jade Melbourne was more considered a slasher and shooting guard when Seattle drafted her in 2022 coming from my discussions with (then) Storm player Stephanie Talbot and Ezi Mabegor. My understanding is that it was the Storm organization that pushed Jade to continue working to develop into a point guard as the team was going to need more point guards once Sue Bird and Briann January both retired after the 2022 WNBA season.

I bring this up to say that one of Jade’s best abilities is to score and create dribble penetration into the lane. While I know the WNBL is not the equivalent of the WNBA, it’s still a very talented league, and at just 21 years old Melbourne averaged 16.3 PPG, 7.6 APG, and 5.1 RPG this season overseas in Australia. If she can continue to show that promise at the WNBA level, she is going to be a good piece for the Storm to have. Especially, factoring in her ability to play both the one and the two. Seattle must also factor in that Sami Whitcomb’s contract is up after this 2024 season and the team will need to have a strong continuity plan moving beyond this season.

After landing Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith in Free Agency, the Seattle Storm did a good job of adding another piece through the draft that can help fill out the team’s bench for this upcoming WNBA season.

Let me know what you think about the team’s draft selections or if you have any other questions in the chat below!

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Also, apologies for the delay. I wanted to have this out on Tuesday morning, but I was dealing with a bad migraine on Monday evening and couldn’t stare at a computer screen without getting incredibly nauseous. Thankfully, I was able to put this together for you on Tuesday night.

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