“I always wanted to come back to Seattle because I’m settled here. I had a good year here last year. This is my place. I know everybody. I have friends here outside the court, so it’s a known place for me. I’m not used to it, because I’m always changing teams, but I’m kinda getting tired of that. I think it was a good decision for me to come back and keep going what I had done in the two years.”

Welcome to The Furtado Center, where we’ve got the world’s first dueling Storm live blogs going between Alan Horton and myself. We’ve been let into practice just in time for a drill with two squads working in the half-court against each other 5-on-5, then working on starting the break (but not finishing it) with a stop.

The team wearing white features Tanisha Wright, Victoria Lucas-Perry, Chameka Scott, Katie Gearlds, Ashley Robinson and Sarah McKay. Alexis Kendrick, Yolanda Paige, Cameo Hicks, Iziane Castro Marques, Wendy Palmer, Andrea Bills and Aya Traore make up the Black team.

Man, is it great to see Wendy Palmer on the court. Wendy played so well during training camp and the first couple of weeks of last season before her Achilles injury ended her campaign. Wendy’s veteran savvy is immediately apparent. She is wily. I don’t think the impact of a healthy Wendy Palmer can be overstated.

It just isn’t Storm training camp until you hear a point guard yelling “motion,” Anne Donovan’s standard offense of choice. It will be fun to hear Francesca Zara uttering it in her Italian accent again when she joins the team later in training camp.

Center Sarah McKay, a 6-7 rookie out of Indiana, has left the practice court after coming down awkwardly on her right ankle.

It is really strange seeing Cameo Hicks in a Storm practice jersey after four years in the purple and gold at UW.

I’m pleasantly surprised by Katie Gearlds’ quick hands on defense. She’s had a couple of deflections so far. We know all about Katie’s ability to shoot the basketball, but we’re still learning about her defense. Alan has a little more on the topic.

Izi hits two free throws and we’re done. More after we speak with Anne and the players.

If you’ve followed the Storm for a while, you’re probably used to a familiar routine – media day kicks off the season on the first day of training camp. However, that won’t be the case this year. With so many key players still overseas, media day has been pushed back to May 14.

The Storm will hold its first practice tonight, per custom, but that will not be open to the media. So today is much quieter than the craziness media day usually brings. The first chance for us beat writers to get a look at the roster will come tomorrow – expect plenty of observations.

Hello and welcome to StormTracker, the official blog of the Seattle Storm. There’s a running joke in the Sonics & Storm business offices that whenever anyone sees me with a computer – and even sometimes without one – they ask me if I’m blogging. The answer is almost always no. Other than live in-game blogs, I haven’t ever really truly blogged.

That’s changing now. Big thanks to Nathan Affolter, our web producer, for getting this blog up and running.

What can you expect from the StormTracker blog? Well, I’m not really sure yet. That will be defined as the season goes on. However, I definitely plan to use the blog for quick updates after practices at The Furtado Center wrap up. I’ll definitely follow news from around the league. I also hope to be able to provide more interactivity with fans by responding to comments.

So thanks for coming. I hope you bookmark the page and visit often.

(By the way, the RSS feed for this blog still does not appear to be working. I’ll update you as soon as we’ve figured it out.)