New York Liberty assistant coach Sonia Raman has agreed to a multi-year deal to become the next coach of the Seattle Storm, sources briefed on the agreement told The Athletic.
Raman will join Seattle after one season in New York, and she will now be tasked with stewarding the development of 2025 No. 2 pick Dominique Malonga, who is already considered one of the league’s rising stars.
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In taking the Storm job, Raman will also become the first person of Indian descent to be a WNBA head coach. She is replacing Noelle Quinn, who had been Seattle’s coach from 2021-2025.
This past season was Raman’s first in the WNBA. She played a key role in the Liberty’s offensive development as well as in special situations, such as late-game situations and after timeout sets.
While Raman was new to the WNBA, she had more than a decade of coaching experience across various levels. From 2008-2020, Raman was the head coach at Division III MIT. She parlayed her success there to an assistant coach role at the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, where she was well-regarded among her peers. She worked for the Grizzlies from 2020-2024.
Raman has some familiarity with both the organization and the area. During the 2024 WNBA season, while with Memphis, she spent time watching some Storm practices, observing best practices. Raman’s wife, former WNBA player Milena Flores, also grew up just over 30 miles outside of Seattle.
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The Storm are among the league’s most intriguing teams this coming offseason. Nneka Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins and Gabby Williams were All-Stars this past summer, yet the franchise still failed to get out of the first round for the second consecutive year. Ezi Magbegor, a 26-year-old center, is another former All-Star, and she, too, is a free agent who could look to sign elsewhere.
Seattle will also look to improve its late-game execution under Raman. They went 14-15 in games that went into clutch time (games that had a score margin within five points in the final five minutes), with a minus-12 net rating in such moments, the second-lowest of any playoff team.
Raman has interviewed for WNBA head coach opportunities in each of the past two WNBA offseasons and was also a candidate in the Liberty’s ongoing coaching search, the sources said.
The Liberty are now the lone coach opening in the WNBA.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Seattle Storm, WNBA
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