When looking at Seattle Storm forward Gabby Williams’ pro basketball career to date, the 2021 WNBA season marks an inflection point – despite Williams not having logged a single minute played.
Williams, then a member of the Chicago Sky, was set to fulfill a personal and familial dream by competing for the French national team in EuroBasket and the Tokyo Olympics, both of which would be her first participation in such events. Williams’ international commitments, though, would require her to miss nearly three months of the WNBA season.
“I was asked not to go,” Williams said of her interaction with the Sky’s front office.
According to Williams, an understanding had been reached between both parties: Williams would start the year overseas, and James Wade, then the general manager and head coach of Chicago, would seek to trade her.
A week before the 2021 season began, however, the Sky shocked Williams by suspending her contract. She learned of her suspension via social media.
After the suspension, Williams met with Sky owner Michael Alter in person. According to Williams, Alter couldn’t fathom why she would want to play in the Olympics and “not be in America.”
“I told him, ‘You have to understand, I don’t make money here,’ ” said Williams, who was traded to the Los Angeles Sparks shortly after the suspension. “Not even about money – I wasn’t getting a lot of minutes. I didn’t feel very important to the team – they didn’t make me feel important – and I was like, ‘You’re asking me to sacrifice this for that.’”
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The cascade of events was difficult for Williams but ultimately served as a wake-up call for her to take control of her career.
“At that point, I was still very young and was still seeing it as like … I do everything for my team, my franchise. I’m just that kind of person,” Williams said. “Then just realizing that, oh, maybe I should be careful with that because maybe people aren’t investing in me the way I’m investing in them. So let me start investing in myself more.”
Williams, now a member of the Storm, has since transformed her presence in the league, emerging as one of the game’s most dynamic forces – a “French Army knife” on the court and a beacon for player agency off of it, always seemingly in control of her next move.
“She is just making the decisions that are best for her career,” said Sparks forward and close friend Azurá Stevens. “It’s cool to see her kind of lead in that way. … She’s taken her career into her own hands.”
When Williams was a child growing up in Sparks, Nevada, a few miles outside of Reno, she would often walk to her grandmother’s house after school. Williams’ grandmother, Angela Bishop, lived just down the street from her.
Bishop, who is from Paris, started teaching Williams French at the age of 6.
“My siblings, they are familiar with the language, but I’m the only one who speaks it because I spent so much time with my grandmother,” Williams said. “I basically lived with her.“
Williams’ grandmother would always talk to her about one day taking her to France to meet her extended family. Neither at the time could have imagined that Williams would one day lead France’s basketball team to a silver medal during last summer’s Paris Olympic Games. Williams’ high-level play during the Paris Games was consumed by a world audience. She finished the Olympics as France’s leader in points, assists and steals, capped by a team-leading, 19-point performance in the gold-medal game, in which France fell to the United States by a point.
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She would be named the best defensive player of the tournament and earn a spot on the Paris 2024 All-Star Five. Williams was later awarded the 2024 Alain Gilles Trophy, given to the French basketball player of the year.
“It’s definitely been different in France, like the level of kind of becoming almost like a household name,” said Williams, who also was voted by fans as the 2024 European Player of the Year. “But at the end of the day, it doesn’t.”
Williams had 20 family members in the stands for the gold-medal game. It would have been closer to 50 if there hadn’t been a cap on allotted tickets for players. The choice she had made in 2021 to commit to the national team, despite the hurdles along the way, had resulted in an experience for Williams that was priceless.
“Just being able to, like, go run and hug my niece after a game or seeing my family after those moments and they just kept repeating, ‘This is the best trip in the whole world,’” Williams said. “Seeing them so happy to be there was like, ‘Wow, this was all worth it.’”
Williams’ transition to being a pro was defined by a rotating learning curve.
As a standout for UConn, Williams often played in the frontcourt, a 180 from her days playing point guard in high school. Early on as a pro in Chicago, Williams was often asked to interchange positions, leaving her to feel like she was unable to find proficiency in either. At the time, her duties manifested as a frustrating task, but they have since become a point of growth for Williams, a player who can handle the ball but also defend the paint, direct offense and rebound the basketball. That all culminated into the role Williams now occupies in Seattle.
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On-court play wasn’t the only adjustment required of Williams as a pro. One of the most poignant lessons Williams learned early in her career was that, despite living a dream of being in the sport’s top league, ultimately, the WNBA is a business.
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There were multiple eye-popping moments for Williams on her path to grasping that reality. There are the more common occurrences, like when Williams was in her rookie training camp and had to process multiple players being waived and losing their shots at playing in the league.
Then there are more unique moments. Williams recalled a team meeting in 2018 in which Chicago Sky CEO Adam Fox presented a PowerPoint presentation to players, presumably, Williams said, to explain why the organization had not invested more money into the team.
“They were, showing us, like, ‘We don’t pay you guys because you don’t make us money.’ Kind of, like, validating [themselves] and brainwashing us,” Williams said. “Like, ‘We don’t invest in you guys because of this. … There’s eight out of 12 teams that make revenue. We’re not one of those teams.’
“I was like, ‘What is going on?’”
The Sky did not return a request for comment.
Williams doesn’t necessarily view the WNBA as the end-all, be-all. Being half-European, she said, allows her to hold that point of view. Does she want to compete against the very best? Of course. Does she want to prove she can excel in the best league in the world? Undoubtedly. For Williams, though, that can’t come at the cost of sacrificing well-being, both emotional and monetary.
“I maybe got a lot of criticism for [choosing to go overseas] or people were saying that, like, I was fighting the WNBA and I’m like, I’m making a business decision the same way the W is,” Williams said. “Like, they want me to stay for less money or for less benefits or less investment. Like, no one else would do that in any other profession. So why should I?”
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In recent years, Williams has become one of the faces of the discourse surrounding WNBA prioritization, which requires players to arrive by the start of training camp or risk having their contracts suspended. While some overseas leagues end prior to the start of the WNBA season, others, such as the LBWL in France, currently do not. The rule has forced many veteran players, who do not meet the league’s prioritization exemption, to make tough choices about playing in the WNBA.
Williams arguably has been the rule’s most vocal dissident. In 2023, she elected to play in the LBWL but suffered a concussion during the playoffs for her French club, Lyon ASVEL. Because Williams suspended her Lyon contract prior to the WNBA’s deadline, she was allowed to later sign with a WNBA team.
“I still think the prioritization thing is ridiculous. I’m sorry, I’ll say it. Like, literally, I’m only here because I got concussed,” Williams said after appearing in her first game of the 2023 season with Seattle.
Williams missed the opening months of the WNBA season in 2024, choosing to prioritize her preparation with the French national team for the 2024 Olympics. Since she ended her international season prior to the start of WNBA training camp, Williams was eligible to sign with a team after the Olympics and was in demand by every team that had an available roster spot. She re-signed with the Storm.
Following the conclusion of the 2024 season, Williams voiced her displeasure with prioritization and how she felt the league had fallen short in forcing players to leave overseas commitments without being additionally compensated for doing so.
“When I talk about prioritization, I understand that you need to have players here. It is hard to come late, I admit. But the W thinks that they don’t have to pay us more in order for us to be here,” Williams said during Seattle’s exit interviews in September.
There is a hope that even if the rules around prioritization remain unchanged in the WNBA’s upcoming collective bargaining agreement, the expected substantial increase in player salaries as a result of a new CBA could incentivize international players for whom pay is the primary issue.
Williams said that she has been approached by a number of players who have thanked her for speaking out and “calling out the irony.”
“I’m literally just answering questions, honestly. … They’re not paying enough in the W,” Williams said. “The punishment is not matching the salary, if that makes sense. … Don’t ask me to come on time if my salary is better [in Europe].”
WNBA salaries in 2025 range from about $66,000 annually to about $250,000 for a player on a super-maximum contract. Overseas, top players can earn close to, and more than, seven figures.
By choosing to play in Seattle in 2024, Williams opened herself up to receiving a core designation from the Storm in the offseason, and she did. It resulted in Williams signing a one-year deal that made her the highest-paid player on Seattle’s roster in 2025.
In Seattle, Williams is known for doing a little bit of everything. She is the Storm’s on-court connector, her involvement and activity melding Seattle’s kinetic energy on the floor – so much so that Williams rarely leaves the court. This season, Williams is averaging a team-high 34.2 minutes per game, which ranks fifth in the WNBA.
The Storm’s production shifts when Williams leaves the floor. According to ESPN Stats and Information, in the 479 minutes that Williams has played this season, the Storm are +102. In the 81 minutes that Williams has not played this season, the Storm are -36. When Williams is on the court for Seattle, its defensive rating is 95.6, placing it just shy of the two top team defensive ratings in the league, the New York Liberty (94.4) and the Minnesota Lynx (94.5). When Williams is off the court, the Storm’s defensive rating is 105.8.
Williams’ impact and growth can be summarized in the Storm’s last three games. On June 17, in a win over Los Angeles, Williams totaled a career-high eight steals, which set a Storm single-game record. In a win against the Las Vegas Aces on June 20, Williams recorded her first double-double of her career, totaling 18 points and a career-high 12 rebounds. On Sunday, in a win over New York, Williams notched her second straight double-double, this time with 12 points, a career-high 10 assists and four steals.
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“We’re seeing her blossom on both sides of the basketball,” Storm point guard Skylar Diggins told Andscape on May 30. “She’s dynamic, a three-level scorer, and our best perimeter defender.”
Williams’ biggest statistical jump this season has come from the 3-point line, where she is shooting 41.2% on 4.9 attempts per game. In all of Williams’ past six seasons in the WNBA, she had not shot better than 32.3% or taken more than 3.2 attempts per game. Williams made 22 threes in the first nine games of this season, which is more than any season she has played in the WNBA.
Williams ranks sixth in the WNBA in 3-point percentage among players with at least 50 total attempts this season.
“We all know that Gabby can get downhill and what she can do in transition, getting to the paint and all those things, but to consistently do what she’s doing from the outside, it does present a matchup issue for teams,” Storm head coach Noelle Quinn said during a pregame news conference on June 1. “They’re gonna start playing Gabby way differently when she’s really locked into that efficiency.”
Williams’ all-around performance this season has made her a strong candidate for next month’s WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis. It would be her first All-Star Game selection.
Williams continues to navigate decisions on her playing career as they arise. She recently elected to not participate in EuroBasket this summer with France, choosing instead to remain with the Storm.
Williams is on track to complete her first full WNBA season since 2022. When the season ends, she’ll return overseas to play for Fenerbahçe in Turkey. The WBSL, the league in which Fenerbahçe competes, ends its season prior to the start of WNBA training camp.
“I think it’s just kind of inspiring for, like, people to know that you’re in control of your career,” Storm forward Ezi Magbegor said of Williams. “And just, you can kind of control where you see best for your game. Gabby has done that.”
As Williams looks to the future of her career, she said she’s content with the growth she’s seen in the WNBA and wants to be a part of continuing it.
“I think this is a really important moment for us,” Williams said. “I’d love to start focusing on being [in the WNBA].”
Whether it’s in Europe or stateside, Williams has prioritized being in spaces where she feels safe and happy – both of which she said she’s found playing for the Storm.
“When I’m here, I feel relaxed – like I can breathe,” Williams said.
Reflecting on her career to date, Williams said she wouldn’t change anything about her journey that has gotten her to this moment. In Seattle, she feels like she’s where she should be. Though the journey may have taken a bit longer and been a bit bumpier than expected, she’s living in the present – without regret.
Williams said: “Everything just kind of feels perfectly aligned right now.”