Just a few hours left until the Storm tips off the 2012 season against the Los Angeles Sparks. What better way to fill them than reading about the season to come?

Yesterday was the Seattle Times‘ annual preview section. Jayda Evans focused on Camille Little’s role as an anchor throughout training camp.

Training camp opened and a familiar voice shouted, “Storm on three!”

It was Little captaining a team of new faces. It’s a WNBA norm to wait for key players to arrive, sharing them with overseas teams so they can make a living from basketball. So it was Little’s responsibility to set the tone early, as she did in 2010.

Today Evans writes about the different lineups the Storm could put on the court this season.

Thompson, 37, is slated to start at her natural power forward position, unlike playing on the wing as she did the past three seasons in L.A. She’ll be surrounded by a championship backcourt in Sue Bird and Tanisha Wright, with either Ann Wauters inside and Camille Little on the wing or Katie Smith on the wing and Little teaming with Thompson inside.

Essentially, who starts can’t be a problem.

“I don’t think anybody really cares,” said Bird of the opening-day lineup. “Everybody is going to have their role. (And) when you have this many people on the court that can do a variety of things, it’s easy. You can keep it very simple. You don’t have to call anything complicated. Everyone can kind of score from every spot.”

The Times also has four keys to the season, Evans’ power rankings and capsule bios on the entire roster.

Did you know? Thompson doesn’t like her signature matte red lipstick, a staple since college. “I think it’s dated,” she said. Wears it in games because fans request it.

Tim Booth of The Associated Press wrote about the additional burden on Bird with Lauren Jackson missing the first half of the season.

It’s not new for Seattle to play without Jackson, who has missed games due to injuries in three of the past four seasons. But this is the first time the Storm heads into a season understanding that Jackson won’t be around, rather than being blindsided by a sudden ailment.

“It’s not me going into each game like I have to be different because Lauren is here or she isn’t. It just kind of happens,” Bird said. “It’s the nature of the game and how it unfolds.”

Aaron Lommers’ preview in the Everett Herald looked at the history Storm Head Coach Brian Agler is on the verge of making.

If the Storm win, Agler will stand alone with the most victories as a head coach in the history of women’s professional basketball. Agler comes into the season tied with Van Chancellor at 211 wins. Chancellor accumulated all of his victories with the WNBA’s Houston Comets, who folded in 2008. Chancellor led the Comets to championships in each of the league’s first four seasons.

Agler amassed 72 victories with the Columbus Quest of the old American Basketball League and the rest in the WNBA with the Minnesota Lynx and the Storm. He won back-to-back championships with the Quest in 1997 and 1998, and led the Storm to the WNBA title in 2010.

Lommers also writes about how the salary cap forced the Storm’s hand in terms of remaking the roster this offseason.

I guess what people need to understand is, ‘Why all the sudden did you guys have cap issues?’ Well, it was because some of our younger players like Tanisha and Camille, who had played great … and deserved raises, we had to try to keep them as well,” Agler said. “So when they got raises then it put a lot more pressure on our salary cap. That being said, we got to the point where we could have kept that team together, but it would have really hurt our depth.”

Here’s WNBA.com’s preview of the Storm’s season.

The Seattle Storm made some bold moves in the offseason trading team stars Swin Cash and Le’coe Willingham in exchange for the second pick in this year’s draft. And it looks like the move to infuse some youthful energy into the team is already paying off.

The Storm picked Tennessee’s Shekinna Stricklen as the 2nd overall pick in the 2012 draft and in her first game of action with the Storm, she racked up a team-high 15 points during a preseason win against the Los Angeles Sparks.

On ESPN.com, the great Mechelle Voepel also spotlights Little’s growing role.

Speaking of confidence, Little says that playing in China really did help her in that regard.

“My role there changes dramatically,” Little said. “I worked on my range, and every time I had an opportunity to go one-on-one, I tried to take advantage of it. It’s fun, and it also boosts your confidence level.

“Especially in a year like this, when Lauren won’t be here in the beginning, we’re going to need the scoring to be spread out more. Hopefully, I can carry over how I scored and played in China to here.”

Our friends at Sports Press Northwest will be covering the Storm this season. Here’s their preview of tonight’s game.

The Storm added frontcourt depth with the acquisition of Ann Wauters and 37-year-old Tina Thompson. Thompson and Wauters are expected to help fill another void, when Seattle sent forward Swin Cash to the Chicago Sky in exchange for the second pick in the 2012 WNBA draft.  Both former No. 1 draft picks themselves, Wauters and Thompson will offer an inside-out dynamic Agler hopes will create match-up problems for opponents.  Thompson has averaged 15.6 PPG over her 15-year-career that spans the WNBA’s existence.

710 ESPN’s Bill Swartz was at Media Day and shares a pair of stories, one on how the Storm balances this split season with an Olympic break and also a discussion of the 40th anniversary of Title IX.

“I know when I went to USC in 1993, there were obvious changes being made because of Title IX,” Thompson said, recalling that difficult time. “Coach Marianne Stanley sued the university, and while she didn’t win, and her contract was not renewed. The school was obviously doing little things to make sure they were up to task.”

SlamOnline.com has predictions at the start of the season. Stephen Litel puts the Storm fourth in his power rankings, while Clay Kallam projects the team second in the Western Conference.