The Storm temporarily suspended Awa Fam’s contract before the standout rookie forward left Seattle to practice with Spain’s national team ahead of the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup.

“She left to join Spain for the end of their training camp going into the FIBA World Cup,” coach Sonia Raman said after Friday’s practice. “So, supportive of her being able to do that and represent her country. It’s really important for her to do that.”

The Storm (8-31) will be without Fam on Sunday when they face the Los Angeles Sparks (13-25) at Climate Pledge Arena. Tipoff is at 2 p.m.

The 6-foot-4 center/forward, who was taken No. 3 overall in the 2026 WNBA draft, missed the first six games of the season while playing in Spain for Valencia Basket, which captured a fourth consecutive Liga Femenina Endesa championship.

In 33 consecutive games with the Storm, including 22 starts, the 20-year-old Fam is averaging 10.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.8 assists. She’s shooting 45.1% from the field and 35.5% on three-pointers.

“I know she’s going to stay locked in with what we’re doing from afar,” Raman said. “She did a really good job with that with Valencia, and now that she’s been with us, it’ll be a lot more seamless, too.”

More than a dozen WNBA players competing in the FIBA World Cup had their contracts temporarily suspended and left to join their national teams. That includes Toronto Tempo’s Maria Conde who will join Fam and play for Spain.

Following Sunday’s games, the WNBA will take a two-week break for the FIBA World Cup, which is Sept. 4-13 in Berlin.

Many players heading to the FIBA World Cup will remain with their respective WNBA teams through the weekend before joining their national teams, including the Storm’s Dominique Malonga, who will suit up for France, and Australians Ezi Magbegor and Jade Melbourne.

“It’s a case-by-case situation,” Raman said. “We knew about that with Awa, and we’ll have the rest of the group with us.”

With five games left in the season, Raman shot down the idea that the Storm would consider shutting down players or drastically experimenting with rotations.

She intends to closely monitor the workload and the amount of minutes played by the Storm’s four players participating in the FIBA World Cup. But barring any injuries or unforeseen setbacks, she anticipates they’ll return to their roles when Seattle’s season resumes Sept. 17.

“If they’re healthy, they’re playing,” Raman said. “We’ll just kind of see how they’re doing. We want to put health and safety first. If everybody’s healthy and safe, then we’ll just kind of make our usual like roster rotation decisions off that.

“There’s a lot of reasons behind why teams shut people down. … We’re kind of operating from our north star of, ‘Compete and get better together.’ So shutting people down doesn’t really kind of fit into that for us.”

Guard Natisha Hiedeman, who has missed the past three games due to left-shoulder soreness, did not participate in 5-on-5 drills during Friday’s practice and is not expected to play Sunday.

“She got to do a little bit more today on the court, so we’ll just keep working with her,” Raman said. “She’s getting treatment around the clock. She’s doing her rehab around the clock and working really hard. But we’re still kind of day to day on her.”

Hiedeman is second on the team in scoring (15.4 points per game) and leads Seattle with 4.8 assists per game.