Noelle Quinn leads Seattle Storm into playoffs with heart, experience and wisdom

“What impresses me the most about her is kind of a combination of her grace and also her … dog mentality, and I think she balances both of those very well,” Seattle forward and former WNBA MVP Nneka Ogwumike told The Next. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a coach that communicates as much and as effectively as she does.” 

“She’s a basketball savant. … She’s incredibly intelligent. How she sees the game, she studies basketball … she’s special. I think she’s Coach of the Year to me, in my mind,” Storm point guard Skylar Diggins-Smith told The Next. “But I think it’s the relationship part. It means a lot to her — connecting with her players. … That’s what I always I love. I love being coached.”

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Those who have worked with Quinn say she has a brilliant basketball brain. One person who saw those abilities up close was former Storm head coach Dan Hughes. While he was Seattle’s head coach from 2018 to 2021, the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame inductee coached Quinn as a player and welcomed her to his staff as an assistant coach, and together they won two WNBA championships.

“She was one of the most creative assistants that I had, and I relied on her a lot offensively. … You need creative ideas when you’re in a [playoff] series, and I think that will be a strength for her,” Hughes told The Next in a phone interview. “And Noey is very good at recognizing within a game where the strengths are, and she’s really good at playing to that. And I think she’s carried a little bit of that creativeness over defensively.”

“I think that she has a knack for the game. She has a knack for shapes; she has a knack for tendencies and flow. And I think she’s found a way to get our roster this year to put [things] together and be as effective as we can on both ends of the floor,” Ogwumike said of the coach who influenced her decision to sign with Seattle in the offseason. “I’ve had to do things in a different way that maybe I hadn’t done before, and it’s making me a better player, and I’m learning a lot about my teammates because of the way that she coaches.”

Playing to her strengths

Understanding the strengths of a team and being able to play to them is key to being a great coach, according to Hughes. He would know: He’s a two-time WNBA Coach of the Year and the only coach in WNBA history to take four franchises to the playoffs and advance with all of them.

This Storm team has many gifted offensive players, but it also has several top defenders in the league in Diggins-Smith, Ezi Magbegor and Gabby Williams. And defense has been the team’s strength this season, as it ranks fourth in the WNBA in points allowed per 100 possessions and just seventh in points scored per 100 possessions.

“What I’ve seen with Noey this year is an absolute masterful job of playing to her … team’s strengths. You know, we have strengths as coaches — Noey is very good offensively — but she has recognized that this team has some defensive gifts, and she has really brought that out in this 2024 team,” Hughes said.

This year’s team is wildly different from the teams Quinn coached in the 2021 and 2022 playoffs that had Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart as part of a “Big Three” with current guard Jewell Loyd. Hughes thinks Quinn’s adjustment to this new group is part of what makes 2024 her best work yet. 

“She’s had the presence to understand how to get people in their right spots and how to play to some aspects of the game that are strengths with this team — not maybe the first couple that she had and not last year’s, but this year’s,” Hughes said.

‘Superteam’ doesn’t guarantee success

The Storm’s 2024 record of 25-15 may not look that impressive considering the superstars they added in the offseason. But it’s not easy getting a new team to gel, even if those superstars are as talented as Ogwumike and Diggins-Smith.

“Yes, it’s an advantage to have great players, and you’re not going to win championships without that, but it’s not easy to get everybody on the same page. There’s a lot of great teams [on paper] that didn’t turn out being great,” Hughes said.

Even with a slow start to the season and times where it seemed like things weren’t working, Hughes said, “Noey had presence during those times. She didn’t panic. She kind of, I think, said the right things [and] stayed persistent about what they wanted to do, and you saw the rewards of it. You see a team that starts to recognize how to play with each other. They start to recognize their strengths better and better. And that’s the mark of a good coach. …

“You kind of want to put people on the same page and kind of understand what we’re doing together, and then be persistent enough to let it grow.”

That persistence is not easy when things aren’t going well, but Ogwumike described how Quinn effectively led the team during those times.

“We’ve had a thread of themes throughout the season — competitive character, dangerously disciplined — and that’s just something that I think about every time she talks to us, and she always tries to come back to those things,” Ogwumike said. “And she relates a lot of what we do here on the court to just life experiences. She coaches us as people and she coaches us as players, and that’s something that really appeals to me.”

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Player to coach

In 2018, what ended up being Quinn’s final season as a player, she won a championship with Hughes and Seattle. She had plenty of options after that season and didn’t know if she wanted to become a coach, but many people around her, Hughes included, saw her potential very clearly.

“The way she communicated as a player, and especially in her last year … the way that her teammates listened to her, she had an audience and she didn’t have to work at it. It was a recognition of, ‘This is somebody that can help me,'” Hughes said.

Always happy to help his players enter coaching, Hughes saw Quinn much like he did Becky Hammon. Hughes coached Hammon on the San Antonio Silver Stars and saw her potential early on. Hammon went on to coach in the NBA and later led the Las Vegas Aces to back-to-back WNBA championships.

Hughes added Quinn to his staff as an assistant coach in 2019. She helped the Storm win the 2020 championship, and in 2021 Hughes abruptly retired, leaving the very capable but admittedly inexperienced Quinn as head coach.

Storm center Mercedes Russell, who has witnessed Quinn’s journey firsthand since 2018, shared how thankful she is for her teammate-turned-coach on the final day of the regular season.

“That transition from a player to a coach — I’ve obviously never been in that position, so all I could do is really imagine how hard it is. I mean, I was her teammate my rookie year, so it’s just been a whirlwind. … It’s been really cool just having that experience,” Russell said. “Obviously, coming in I was young, she was a vet, so she’s helped me. … [I’m] just thankful for her and our relationship that we’ve had, and obviously [it] continues to grow over time.”

Since taking over the lead role, Quinn has purposefully led with her experience as a player, trying to convey that she knows what her players are feeling because she lived it.

“Frankly, I haven’t ever played for a coach that I’ve played against and is familiar with the league, and it feels really good knowing that she knows what it feels like to be where we are. … There’s a lot of things you don’t have to explain, just because she understands what it feels like,” Ogwumike said.

Beyond using her experience to pour into her players, Quinn is simply passionate.

“I’m a coach, but also this is my passion — teaching, learning basketball and trying to get these ladies to be the best version of themselves and hopefully create magic and be legendary,” Quinn told reporters after her team defeated the Dallas Wings on Sept. 13. “And I think that resonates. … I try to lead with my heart, be a servant leader and all these things, and hopefully that’s how I get the best from them. So my journey has been great in this league, and I just want my players to see that I’m in it for the right reasons.”

It is partly because she can’t play anymore that Quinn has grown her love for the game from the other side.

“I’m old and washed,” Quinn joked. “Now I love basketball in a different capacity. I just want the best for my players. I want them to play hard. I want them to experience what I’ve experienced in winning a championship and finding some success in this league. So that’s where my passion lies … but just really happy with where I’m at, my role, my purpose and the mission that I’m on.”

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Proudly representing

While carrying the responsibility of leading her team, Quinn also feels a larger duty to represent Black women. There are three Black female head coaches in the WNBA: Tanisha Wright, Teresa Weatherspoon and Quinn. This is a distinction Quinn carries with honor while also acknowledging the additional mental weight it can bring.

“I don’t take it for granted at all because the opportunities come few and far between,” Quinn said on Sept. 11. “So, this is why I work so hard, and this is why I make sure that I’m tight with my preparation, in everything that I have to do be the best version of myself for this team, because I don’t want to fumble. I have a responsibility to lead in a way, to set the tone and table for those who follow me. But I’m so grateful for everybody who came before me.”

One of those coaches that came before her is her current assistant coach, Pokey Chatman. Chatman led the Chicago Sky from 2010 to 2016 and the Indiana Fever from 2016 to 2019. 

“I stand on the shoulders of giants in this league, as a player and also as a coach,” Quinn said of coaches like Chatman. “So I do not take this job lightly. I strive every day to be my best, and I fail, I’m not always perfect, but at the end of the day I’m willing to do whatever I need to do … because I’ve been given this amazing opportunity.”

In a league where most of the players are Black, many have not been led by head coaches who look like them. It’s something that many of those who have find valuable, including Russell and Ogwumike.

“To have a Black woman as my head coach is [a] really awesome thing in this league,” Russell said.

“It’s also very important that she looks like me, she looks like a majority of the players in this league — and that relatability you can only get from experience,” Ogwumike said.

Personal growth

This season pushed Quinn in new ways, and she feels she learned many lessons about herself. 

“I learned that heavy is the head [that wears the crown]. It’s a very difficult yet rewarding job to be head of anything, and especially the head coach of this organization. But with that comes a lot of pride,” Quinn told reporters on Thursday before the final regular-season game. “And so through the ups and downs of it, I kind of remain steady and humble in the fact that, like, everybody can’t do this, and so sometimes I got to give myself some pride in that. So I’ve learned to do that a lot more this year.”

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The fourth-year head coach has also focused on maintaining her physical and mental health more this year. Physically, she is working out more this year and feeling like she can hoop again, contributing to her healthy body, mind and spirit. Mentally, leaning heavily on her circle has been particularly important.

“My circle is very small. One of those circles is my staff — I have an amazing staff. They keep me lifted when it’s very difficult, but also when it’s amazing, [they] keep me grounded. … And then obviously my family is very important to me,” Quinn said. “So through it all … just making sure I am present, being where my feet are and really enjoying every moment.”

Improving as a leader was one thing Quinn particularly focused on before the season began. This work seems to have manifested in what Hughes has seen as “greater presence.”

“I think she has grown in understanding where you can really be effective as a head coach … and to me that’s presence,” Hughes said. “When to interact with an official, when not to, when to make a substitution and ask for more out of a player, or when to call a timeout. She’s taken a step as far as presence and she’s, to me, a little more assertive as I watch her. And I like that.”

Quinn is no longer the young coach thrown into the fire that she was in 2021. With time comes more maturity, wisdom and knowledge. Now, the former player will bring that into the playoffs.

“When you think about us getting back to the playoffs and the road that it took to get here, there was a lot of growth in me and in the basketball as well,” Quinn said. “But I do feel prepared. …

“I’ve been here before — a different team and a different seeding for us, and everything is a little bit different from before — but how I approach the game as a player is how I approach the game as a coach: give my all, prepare every day, be the best version of myself to show up, and the humble confidence will shine through.”