SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Flau'jae Johnson considers one of her talents to be adapting to anything that comes her way, so being traded from Golden State to Seattle on draft night hardly threw off her rhythm during a whirlwind couple of weeks as she begins her professional career.
Now, she can't wait to get going as a WNBA rookie — and made her preseason debut in the starting lineup for the Storm against the Valkyries on Saturday night at Chase Center.
“It's crazy, I was just walking out there like, ‘Wow, I’m in the WNBA,'” she said. “Warmups is different, it's not the same. I'm not with LSU, locker room's different, routine's different. But I'm good at adjusting so I feel like I'm doing pretty well. It's going fast, but I kind of operate well in chaos.”
Johnson was drafted No. 8 overall by the Valkyries on April 13 out of LSU, then had her rights sent to Seattle in exchange for the rights to forward Marta Suarez of TCU along with a 2028 second-round selection. Suarez was the first pick of the second round at No. 16 overall.
“It was amazing. It was a great time, highlight of my life,” Johnson said outside the Storm locker room, noting she was as surprised as everybody else with the deal. “Yeah, for sure, definitely but I'm excited. I'm glad how things went.”
She has been leaning on Seattle's veteran players to become more comfortable at the next level, learning and communicating at every chance to familiarize herself with the team's system. It doesn't hurt there is a new head coach in Sonia Raman and many fresh faces, so everybody is figuring things out together.
“Very comforting because I'm used to that,” she said. “At LSU, we were building first year. (Coach Kim) Mulkey was in her first year with her group so it's definitely that same feeling. Everybody's learning each other. That's a great way to enter the group, so I'm blessed to be in that position.”
