New York Liberty open up camp ready to defend their first WNBA championship

NEW YORK — Breanna Stewart and her New York Liberty teammates are focused on the present and that includes defending the WNBA championship.

The Liberty opened camp Sunday along with the other 12 teams in the league. Stewart knows exactly how hard it is to repeat as champion, having won two titles in Seattle and failing to repeat each time. The only repeat champion in the past two decades in the WNBA was the Las Vegas Aces in 2022 and 2023.

“The mentality is turning the page,” she said. “Knowing what we did last year, we had a lot of time to celebrate it and now it’s, building to be better. You know, we talked about, being consistently great night in and night out. And that starts with building great habits in training camp and keeping them sustainable throughout the entire season.”

The Liberty have most of the core back from last season’s title run that was the first in franchise history. They also added Natasha Cloud and Isabelle Harrison.

“I thought it was a great start. And like, I always said, you can’t bring back the same when you win and we have a real good, nice freshness about us,” New York coach Sandy Brondello said. “We’ve got some players that were really going to help us. Obviously, you know, no one greater than Natasha Cloud,”

Brondello wasn’t concerned that Stewart is working her way back from offseason meniscus surgery last month. Stewart took part in the early part of practice Sunday and said she’s “feeling great”. She will integrate more fully into live practice next week.

Stewart said she felt she did something to it in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals last year and waited until after the inaugural season of Unrivaled was over to take care of it.

“I just needed to kind of clean up things in there and clean up the meniscus,” she said. “And, it was just a little bit uncomfortable to be dealing with. And I want to when I’m on the floor, I want to be playing and, free flowing and not really thinking about other things.”

While Stewart will be back before the regular season begins, the Liberty are going to be missing Betnijah Laney-Hamilton for a few months as she recovers from her own knee injury.

“We’re definitely gonna miss her a lot this season,” Stewart said. “I think, you know, with her being out, it gives people opportunities. You know, Leonie (Fiebich) will have a bigger role. Marina (Johannes’) coming here. …It’s just going to be like next woman up mentality and knowing that they’re not going to take her place. But they’re going to be the best version of themselves.”

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball