The Seattle Storm have been struggling to start the 2023 WNBA season. They started out 0-4 and got their first win of the season against the Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday after trailing by as many as 18 points early in the game. It was to be expected though that the Storm might struggle a bit. They lost franchise cornerstone Breanna Stewart to free agency and Sue Bird to retirement. Jewell Loyd, Ezi Magbegor and Mercedes Russell are the lone members left of the 2020 championship team. With a rebuilding year ahead, one might think the Storm need all the help they can get but they made an interesting roster move on Thursday. The Storm cut Kaila Charles' contract reducing their roster to 11 players, one below the league maximum.
ROSTER UPDATE – The Seattle Storm has waived forward Kaila Charles.#TakeCover pic.twitter.com/uLqfnLbd5l
— Seattle Storm PR (@SeattleStormPR) June 8, 2023
With the Storm stacking their roster full of young players this season, the decision to cut Kaila Charles' contract is a little bit surprising. Charles is only in her fourth season in the WNBA after having played for the Connecticut Sun for two seasons and the Atlanta Dream last season. Charles showed promise with the Sun as being a solid backup guard.
Through four games this season, Charles was averaging 1.5 points per game and 1.3 rebounds with splits of 25 percent shooting from the field. While her numbers this season certainly aren't impressive by any stretch, she should be judged more from her production with the Sun when she averaged 4.7 points and 2.7 rebounds while shooting 33.3 percent from three-point range over the course of two seasons from 2020-2021.