Skylar Diggins-Smith Blasts Team in Expletive-Laced Tirade After Storm Loss
The Seattle Storm fell to 18-11 on the WNBA season after losing to the 8-22 Washington Mystics on Monday.
It was a disappointing effort from the Storm, who are now just 5-5 in their last ten games. After the game, Storm veteran guard Skylar Diggins-Smith embarked on an angry rant about her team's performance in the loss.
"In this league, if you aren't ready to play, you'll get beat every f****** night," Diggins said, per Roberta Rodrigues. "[The Mystics] were ready to play and we weren't, on both sides of the basketball. They deserved to win it if we were going to play like that.
"We need to be hitting our stride right now [and] we're not there. It's unacceptable how we're playing on both sides of the basketball," Diggins-Smith continued. "And I f***** it up at the end, that's a terrible foul. As a vet, you can't make that play. But it shouldn't f****** come down to that."
Diggins-Smith signed a two-year, $422,685 contract with the Seattle Storm on February 1. The six-time WNBA All-Star and four-time All-WNBA First Team honoree spent 2020-2023 with the Phoenix Mercury, although she sat out the 2023 season after having a child.
Diggins-Smith added on Monday that, "We all gotta step our game up, and in this league, it only gets harder after the break. And that's fine... but if we don't come ready to play from the start, we're gonna f****** lose."
Many people asked, so here is Skylar Diggins-Smith during the Storm’s postgame press conference after losing to the Washington Mystics with subtitles.
— Roberta Rodrigues 🇧🇷🏀🇺🇸 (@robertawbb) August 27, 2024
“I fucked it up at the end. As a vet, you can’t make that play. But it shouldn’t come down to that”
Q: @WNBAStormChaser pic.twitter.com/jB2ySL4Jt9
Seattle is currently tied with the Las Vegas Aces for the No. 4 seed in the WNBA standings, although the Aces currently told the tiebreaker over them.
The Storm have 11 regular season games remaining to right the ship before the 2024 WNBA Playoffs begin. Their next game is at home against the Atlanta Dream on Wednesday.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.