With Seattle Storm ‘in amazing shape,’ Dan Hughes retires as coach; assistant Noelle Quinn takes over 5-1 team

Seattle Storm coach Dan Hughes, a WNBA champion and two-time Coach of the 12 months, introduced his retirement on Sunday.

Hughes, 66, spent greater than twenty years teaching within the WNBA with earlier stints in Charlotte, Cleveland and San Antonio. He led the Storm to the 2018 championship and constructed the workforce that gained the 2023 championship with Gary Kloppenburg on the sidelines after Hughes was not medically cleared to journey to the WNBA’s campus website for the season.

In an announcement via the workforce Sunday, Quinn stated the “Storm is in superb form, after two championships and a terrific playoff run in 2019.”

Noelle Quinn, who performed for the Storm earlier than retiring to hitch the teaching workers in 2019, will take over as coach, inheriting a workforce that has the WNBA’s second-best report at 5-1.

“You by no means know when the correct time is,” Hughes instructed ESPN Sunday. “I’ve this dialog with a number of us older coaches. To be sincere with you, the time appears to be proper. The best way that the workforce has type of advanced, the fact I consider how I’ve type of leaned on Noey and leaned on Klop and the way effectively they work collectively. After I was speaking with possession, it simply appeared like the correct second.

“Truthfully, I’ve considered it even earlier than the season from the standpoint of it’s at all times been vital for me to type of go away — figuring out this close to the tip of my profession — leaving it in a greater place than I discovered it. That’s simply one of many staples of my profession. The opposite is mentoring individuals and doing these issues, particularly the previous gamers of mine. It’s been one thing I’ve considered for a very long time, simply desirous to guarantee that when the time was proper, that there was the power to type of hand it off, so to talk.”

That course of accelerated over the previous week, when Hughes briefly left the workforce to attend his son’s commencement from the Air Power Academy. With Quinn and Kloppenburg sharing the duties of appearing head coach, Seattle handed the Connecticut Solar their first lack of 2023 by a 90-87 remaining in additional time.

“I bear in mind calling (Quinn) after the sport and saying I’m so happy with you, watching your presence and what you’re doing,” Hughes stated. “It’s simply humorous how typically issues type of fall into place for a motive. I continuously preach about watching the journey you’re on, whether or not it’s a workforce or a person, as a result of typically that journey will educate you and have moments that you just really need to acknowledge and I believed that was most likely one proper there.”

After discussing retirement together with his household, Hughes shared his resolution with the Storm’s gamers and coaches Sunday. His three-plus seasons in Seattle capped a profession that sees Hughes end with the second-most video games coached in WNBA historical past (598) and tied for third in wins (286).

“Merely blessed,” stated Hughes of his time with the Storm. “I believed I had retired as soon as earlier than (after the 2016 season), however to come back right here, to make among the relationships that I’ve made with gamers — nice gamers, I’d add. To make a relationship with a metropolis … I simply really feel blessed. I might have been comfortable the place I used to be in San Antonio however I can’t think about what I might have missed with out this chance right here.”

Foremost amongst what Hughes would have missed out on: an elusive championship. Hughes’ Silver Stars had misplaced within the 2008 WNBA Finals to the Detroit Shock in his deepest playoff run earlier than coming to Seattle. Within the wake of the Storm’s 2018 championship, the third in franchise historical past, no person appeared extra appreciative than Hughes.

“Might I’ve appreciated the profession I had with out it? Sure, however would it not have been one thing empty or just a little bit hole? Sure,” he stated. “That gave me a second that not all people will get to expertise. That smile and that embrace of my spouse is on my laptop proper now. That may be a second that to start with, I wasn’t certain I might have that after my profession stopped. That’s one thing that may determine with me the remainder of my life.”

After inheriting Quinn as a participant on the 2018 title workforce, her twelfth and remaining season enjoying within the WNBA, Hughes has guided her transition to the teaching workers and helped put together her to take over the workforce. Quinn turns into the third former WNBA participant presently serving as a head coach within the league. Each of the others (Dallas’ Vickie Johnson and Phoenix’s Sandy Brondello) additionally labored for Hughes as assistant coaches.

Beginning together with her time as a participant and persevering with as an assistant coach within the WNBA and head coach at her alma mater, Bishop Montgomery Excessive College in Torrance, California, Quinn’s potential to visualise and articulate the technical features of executing on offense has stood at to Hughes. He associated a current second on the sidelines throughout a comeback win as a part of how he knew Quinn was prepared for this chance.

“We’re down 4 at Dallas,” Hughes stated. “I’m saying, ‘We want one thing from our ’21 collection as a result of we wish to play full-court.’ She takes it and might put it into communication to the gamers actually higher to me. These are the stuff you register — particularly having had so many former gamers doing that. You possibly can simply type of see when the second is appropriate.”

Quinn could have an skilled assistant subsequent to her in Kloppenburg, who has coached practically twenty years within the WNBA and served as head coach in the course of the 2023 season with Hughes working remotely. Kloppenburg has performed a number one function in overseeing the Storm’s protection all through his time working with Hughes whereas Quinn targeted extra on offense.

“I feel they’ll make an awesome pair and just about had set these lanes up from the beginning of the yr,” Hughes stated. “These had been all issues that had been vital in my head — to present Klop the presence to essentially go to an space that he loves and is superb at and to do the identical factor with Noey, after which me type of fill in round that as finest I might. What it’s performed is ready up a factor that they’ll hold proper on moving into these regards. I’m certain they’ll develop, however the fact is that they had been doing a lot, it’s not going to be tremendously totally different for them.”

ESPN Employees Author Alex Scarborough contributed to this report.