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Anne Donovan and Chief Operating Officer Karen Bryant, they did so with one overwhelming sense: Disappointment that the team's season had ended in the opening round of the WNBA Playoffs for the third consecutive season.
"I think that goes both ways - from our staff and from the players," said Donovan. "Disappointing regular season and the early exit in the playoffs, just very disappointing. More than anything, that's the theme."
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Sue Bird. "We wanted to do so much and we really felt like we had the experience of winning as well as the experience of losing in the first round. We really thought that could help push us to the next level. It's disappointing not to get there."
After the Storm captured the 2004 WNBA Championship, losses to free agency forced the team into something of a retooling period, with younger players joining the core of Bird, 
Lauren Jackson, 
Betty Lennox and 
Janell Burse. A 20-win season in 2005 was a pleasant surprise, if losing two straight games at KeyArena to exit the playoffs was not. 2006, meanwhile, was seen as a season handcuffed by injuries.
With the Storm more experienced and mostly healthy, 2007 seemed like the team's best shot at a championship since 2004. Instead, the team was inconsistent much of the year, finishing the regular season at .500 before being eliminated from the postseason in two games by the Phoenix Mercury.
Donovan's task over the lengthy WNBA off-season is, with the help of her staff, to identify and address what held the Storm back in 2007.
"I think it's a big off-season for us," she said. "No secret about that."
The Storm enters the off-season with just four players under contract for 2008: Starting forwards Jackson and 
Iziane Castro Marques and reserve perimeter players 
Katie Gearlds and 
Tanisha Wright. That gives the team flexibility entering the free-agent market it has not had in some time.
"I get excited about the possibilities of the Storm that's going to represent next year," Donovan explained. "It gives us options, obviously. We have cap space. There's a lot of things we can look at this off-season."
Three starters will become unrestricted free agents. Bird, who jokes she's getting old now that she has attained the six years of experience necessary to become unrestricted, plans to return assuming the Storm's future in Seattle is secured. What scenario could keep her from coming back to Seattle?
"None," Bird joked, "unless they don't want me."
Returning is also a preference for Lennox, who would not even entertain the notion of leaving when asked hypothetically by the media, and Burse.
One key goal during the off-season will be improvement at the defensive end of the floor. While the Storm was effective on defense during the middle of the season, not coincidentally the team's best stretch of the year, the ultimate defensive results were underwhelming. The Storm finished 10th in the WNBA in Defensive Rating. During the 2004 Championship season, the Storm was third in the league defensively, but has slipped steadily since then.
"I think we've got to look at that, because obviously we've got to get better defensively," Donovan said. "We talked about making those strides this year and becoming a better defensive team and, in long stretches of the season, we were not. I think as we continue to look at our personnel we'll keep that in mind."
Hanging over the Storm's off-season moves will be a new WNBA Collective Bargaining Agreement. The current CBA, which went into effect with the 2003 season, expires at year's end. The league and the WNBA Players' Association are working on negotiating a new deal. Those negotiations aren't expected to be as acrimonious as they were in 2003, when a stoppage of play was narrowly averted, but the new CBA could affect the Storm's ability to core unrestricted free agents, maximum salaries and the salary cap, amongst other key issues.
"We're going to operate business as usual," said Bryant. "Obviously, the CBA is in the hands of the league and the players' union, but from a player personnel standpoint Anne will conduct herself in the off-season as she always has in terms of evaluating and starting to build a decision-making process for free agency when it starts."
Beyond free agency, the Storm will also have the opportunity to add depth in the WNBA Draft. Tentatively, the Storm is set to pick seventh in each round based on its record, but that could change depending on the possibility of expansion in 2008. The Storm also holds the rights to 2007 third-round pick Brandie Hoskins. The Ohio State guard, considered a possible first-round pick before tearing her Achilles, is still working her way back from surgery. Hoskins hopes to be ready to join the Storm for training camp.
The other factor in play heading into 2008 is a familiar one for the worldly Storm - international play. The 2008 Beijing Olympics will take place in August, interrupting the WNBA season. As in 2004, it's expected the league will take a break to allow players and coaches to help their national teams. Donovan will coach the U.S. National Team if, as expected, it qualifies (likely at next month's FIBA Americas Championship), with Bird as her point guard. Jackson is the anchor of the Australian Opals, who are aiming to steal gold from the Americans after winning last fall's World Championships, and Castro Marques is a key player for Brazil.
Donovan isn't worried about balancing her two head coaching assignments and her role as the Storm's director of player personnel.
"It's not unmanageable at all," she said, referring specifically to her off-season Storm duties. "As you build a roster as a coach and obviously with Karen's input and suggestions, we have the perfect team here to try to build a perfect roster for Seattle. It doesn't feel overwhelming in the least."
Barring an upset by Brazil in the FIBA Americas Championship, Castro Marques may have to miss part of the Storm's season to help Brazil attempt to qualify for the Olympics. A new World Olympic Qualifying Tournament will be held in June, the last chance to qualify. With only one spot in the Olympics available in the FIBA Americas Championship and the U.S. as the heavy favorites in that tournament, Brazil will likely be part of the World Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
"I'm going if we don't make it (this fall)," said Castro Marques. "Either I'm going or they're (the U.S.) going. If there is a problem with my going, I'm not coming back (to the Storm), but I already talked about that (with Donovan), so there is no problem."
The issue of Jackson staying in Australia to prepare for the Olympics with her teammates has been raised in the past, but that was downplayed Wednesday with the caveat that a decision could be tied to the future of the Storm in Seattle.
"I haven't spoken much to Basketball Australia at all," Jackson said. "It's pretty much going to be my decision, I think."
"I think she's committed to coming back to Seattle and playing for the Storm," added Donovan. "She wants to be here, no doubt."
Jackson's commitment goes beyond that. Like her teammates and the coaching staff, she wants to ensure that next year's exit interviews are conducted under more positive circumstances.
"I want to win," she said simply. "I want to try and help this team get back to where it was."
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