The WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement has ushered in a historic era of player movement and financial restructuring, with contracts flying in across the league. Amid the blockbuster signings and headline-grabbing trades of this unprecedented offseason, a quieter but meaningful story has emerged in the Pacific Northwest: former South Carolina Gamecock Zia Cooke is returning to the Seattle Storm.
The Storm extended a reserved qualifying offer to Cooke, retaining her exclusive negotiating rights ahead of the 2026 season. The move formalizes what her 2025 arc had already suggested — that Seattle sees something in the Toledo, Ohio native worth holding on to, even after a season full of roster turbulence.
A Season That Told the Whole Story in Miniature
Cooke’s 2025 season with Seattle was, in many ways, a microcosm of her professional career so far: moments of real promise interrupted by circumstances that had as much to do with roster construction as with her own performance. She signed with the Storm on February 12, 2025, after being waived by the Los Angeles Sparks, and made the opening day roster. On August 5, she was included in a trade to the Washington Mystics, but was subsequently waived by Washington. On August 18, she returned to Seattle on a rest-of-season contract.
The round trip from Seattle to Washington and back in under two weeks tells you something about how the league views Cooke. She is not a player teams are eager to let go of permanently. She is a player being shuffled by cap math and roster logistics — but one who keeps finding her way back onto rosters at all.
She played in 26 games with Seattle during the 2025 season, scoring a season-high 10 points against Golden State on June 29, 2025. Her three-point shooting reached a career-best 39.5 percent, a meaningful development for a player whose perimeter accuracy has been the variable most discussed by evaluators throughout her career.
The Foundation That Built Her
What makes Cooke’s professional persistence meaningful is the foundation she arrived with. At South Carolina, she was a three-time All-SEC selection and earned First-Team recognition as a sophomore and senior. She appeared in 137 games — all starts — for the Gamecocks, averaging 13.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 0.9 steals.
Her senior season in 2022-23 was the finest of her collegiate career. She led South Carolina to a program-record 36 wins, including a perfect 16-0 run in SEC play, and led the team with nine 20-point games, including three in postseason action. That season culminated in her winning the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award as the nation’s best shooting guard — an honor that placed her among the top shooting guards in the country, a list that also included Ta’Niya Latson, Hailey Van Lith, and Diamond Miller among her finalist peers.
She capped her college career with a 31-point performance, including 15 points in the fourth quarter, at Georgia on January 2, 2023 — the single-game high of her collegiate career. Over 103 games in double figures across her college tenure, she averaged 14.1 points against ranked opponents in 52 career games.
The Los Angeles Sparks selected her 10th overall in the 2023 WNBA Draft , making her the third South Carolina player taken in what was one of the program’s most celebrated draft classes.
What the Return to Seattle Actually Means
The key analytical point in Cooke’s situation is not just that Seattle re-signed her — it is how they re-signed her. A reserved qualifying offer gives the Storm exclusive negotiating rights, which means they are not simply bringing her back as a depth filler. They are protecting their investment and ensuring no other team can pull her away without their involvement.
The Storm are entering a significant transition period of their own, with notable free agents including Nneka Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins, Gabby Williams, Ezi Magbegor, and Brittney Sykes all departing or in flux. In that environment, continuity at the guard position has real value. Cooke’s familiarity with the organization, her shooting percentage improvement, and her defensive activity make her a coherent fit for a roster being rebuilt around younger pieces.
Her three-year WNBA career has produced career averages of 4.0 points in 94 games. The numbers are modest by star standards, but they don’t capture the full picture of what she brings — particularly defensively, where her quickness and effort have drawn praise throughout her time in the league.
For South Carolina fans, Cooke’s continued professional presence is another data point in the broader story of what Dawn Staley’s program produces. Her three Final Four All-Tournament Team appearances, her national championship in 2022, and her status as the country’s best shooting guard in 2023 represent a collegiate body of work that the professional level has not yet fully unlocked — but the progression is visible, and the opportunity in Seattle looks like the most stable chapter of her WNBA career yet.
The new CBA era promises higher salaries and more financial security for players across the league. For Cooke, the more immediate promise is simpler: a place where she is wanted, a shooting touch that is improving, and another chance to show what the 10th overall pick of the 2023 WNBA Draft was always capable of becoming.
