The Portland-Seattle rivalry goes beyond basketball.
It’s about coffee. Music. Food trucks. Soccer!
And yes, once upon a time, it was also fiercely about basketball.
On Wednesday, Portland and Seattle took a giant step toward feeling whole again when the WNBA announced it would return to the City of Roses in 2026.
With that reveal comes about a million positive thoughts. But for starters, we can’t ignore the history.
It was back in 2002 when the Portland Fire folded after just three seasons—becoming the only franchise never to make the playoffs.
The team’s exit made sense, but so much time has passed—22 years for those counting—and Portland has looked like maybe the most obvious landing spot for a W franchise for a while.
Jackie Stiles, specifically, also comes to mind.
The Fire struggled both on the court and financially, but if you attended a game, there was always a buzz in the building. The arena had above-average attendance despite its below-average record, in part because the city embraced a new team. But you can also thank Stiles, the 2001 Rookie of the Year.
That year, Stiles took both Portland and the W by storm scoring 14.9 points per game (No. 9 in the W) and shooting 43.1 percent from three on 3.6 attempts per night (making the 7th most that year).
Of course, if you follow sports in the Pacific Northwest, Wednesday’s news is about more than history, as important as that is. It’s about paving the path for a revived yet newfound rivalry ahead.
Portland vs. Seattle basketball, both on the men’s and women’s sides, has been absent for too long. That absence has left a rivalry-shaped hole in hearts since 2002—as well as since 2007 when the Seattle Supersonics were ripped away, leaving the Blazers without a proper rival.
It’s why the city of Portland isn’t the only one to recognize what this means for the Pacific Northwest, with the Storm embracing every bit of the rivalry to come.
So say it loud, folks: The “I-5 Rivalry” is officially back.
Over the years, the Storm have had a brewing rival over in the Los Angeles Sparks. Buy everything about today’s Storm team is about evolving in a post-Sue Bird world. What does that era look like? What happens when Seattle’s backcourt of Jewell Loyd (30 years old) and Skylar Diggins-Smith (34) also move on?
For Rose City, this will be a new team finding its barrings. Don’t be surprised when Portland feels like a little sister to the Storm at first. But, at the same time, the league has never seen so much talent entering at once. And while we can’t expect every rookie class to match 2024, the players Portland can add in the coming years will be a level ahead of the talent that was at their disposal in the early 2000s.
Stiles aside, of course.
