Liberty turning page to tall WNBA title defense task: ‘Hardest thing to do’

Training camps opened across the WNBA Sunday, and the Liberty are the team to beat this season.

The Libs will be tasked with carrying the weight of their 2024 title with them at every stop over the next six months.

But the pressure that comes with being the title defenders is a welcomed privilege in Brooklyn.

“The mentality is turning the page,” Breanna Stewart said after Sunday’s practice. “We had a lot of time to celebrate it and now it’s building to be better. We talked about being consistently great night in and night out and that starts with building great habits and training camp.”

Last year’s motivation at training camp was retribution from falling short in the 2023 WNBA Finals. But last October, the Liberty got over the hump and captured the franchise’s first championship after besting the Minnesota Lynx in a thrilling five-game series.

This time around, the Liberty are honing in on evolving.

“That’s the key thing,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said. “It’s not about repeating. With this hard thing, we gotta evolve. So that’s what we’re focused on. How do we do that? Individually, collectively, all of us.”

For Sabrina Ionescu, the work started back in November. Her offseason was temporarily disrupted after she had a thumb procedure in December, but she came to camp feeling like she’s “in the best shape of my life right now.”

Ionescu isn’t satisfied with one championship ring.

“It’s having that short memory of wanting to be the best and never settling,” Ionescu said. “And I think everyone on the team understands when we came here … when we kind of suit up especially now and not take any of these days for granted because it’s a new season.”

Many teams, including the Indiana Fever, Phoenix Mercury, Las Vegas Aces and Atlanta Dream, fortified their rosters during a hectic free agency cycle.

Meanwhile, the Liberty ran it back with their championship core, featuring Stewart, Ionescu, 2024 Finals MVP Jonquel Jones and Leonie Fiebich, while also adding guard Natasha Cloud and forward Isabelle Harrison and welcoming the returns of Marine Johannés and Rebekah Gardner.

“We have a lot of our core back and [are] excited with our new additions,” Stewart said. “We’re just going to be ourselves and really keep it going from there. But we know that the target’s on our back.”

There are some things that the Liberty will have to figure out before their May 17 season opener.

They’ll have to find a solution to fill the big void from starting forward Betnijah Laney-Hamilton’s absence after she suffered a knee injury earlier this year that will cause her to miss most — if not all — of the 2025 season.

The Liberty also need to shore up their bench and continue building chemistry with the newcomers.

Brondello could tell from that first team meeting that this group already has the right mindset and focus heading into a title defense.

By the end of Sunday’s practice, Brondello felt the Liberty were much further along than the previous year.

“To go back-to-back, that’s the hardest thing to do,” she said. “We’ll make sure we stay true to what we want to accomplish this year and win the day as we say. And I thought it was a great start, and look, I always said you can’t bring back the same when you win, and we have a real good, nice freshness about us.”