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NEW YORK — The long wait is over, and the New York Liberty have finally joined the ranks of champions in the WNBA.
But general manager Jonathan Kolb didn’t assemble the Liberty to be a one-hit wonder. This is a team that is meant to contend for years, and winning a title in 2024 was the culmination of the first chapter.
As coach Sandy Brondello said after beating the Lynx in overtime for the crown on Sunday night: “Let’s not stop at one though. Let’s go for two.”
The scars of losing in the 2023 finals helped cultivate a more resilient group this season. New York had the best record in the regular season and the best net rating, with their plus-11.7 mark in line with some of the best teams of the past decade. The Liberty weren’t as dominant during the postseason as they had been earlier in the year, but their depth and talent provided an edge as they persevered through a fatiguing five-game finals series.
Entering 2025, the Liberty once again have the big pieces in place, but the margins will require some more creativity. The majority of the rotation is under contract, and star Breanna Stewart has essentially committed to returning, leaving Courtney Vandersloot and Kennedy Burke as the holdouts. It’s difficult to imagine Vandersloot coming back for such a small role (she averaged 14.3 minutes per game in the 2024 postseason compared to 32.6 in 2023), so New York will have to address its backup point guard position. Perhaps Marine Johannès will return in a non-Olympic year or Jaylyn Sherrod will step into that role, or a veteran will join in free agency.
WOKE UP WNBA CHAMPIONS 🏆 pic.twitter.com/SJBHxZSuSi
— WNBA (@WNBA) October 21, 2024
The Liberty enjoy the advantage of playing in New York, a market that attracts free agents due to the fan base, the history of the city, and the investment of the ownership group. That should help fill in the gaps on the roster, especially now that the team has gotten over the hump and isn’t chasing an elusive first championship.
Among the Liberty’s main competitors in 2025 will be the Aces, who bring back their core four, and the Lynx, who have everyone under contract but Natisha Hiedeman and Myisha Hines-Allen. Indiana also figures to improve in Caitlin Clark’s second year, but the depth of talent in New York — even after the upcoming expansion draft — will be better than anywhere else in the league. The Liberty also could add a high-level free agent with the cap space from Vandersloot’s contract. DeWanna Bonner and Alysha Clark would be interesting additions to the wing group if either wanted to move to New York.
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The Liberty didn’t enter the 2024 season as championship favorites, though they have played with a super-team target on their back for two years. They know pressure, and have sometimes struggled to deal with it — case in point, Game 5. Even if New York is the betting favorite in 2025, it will not be overwhelmingly so. The league is too deep and there were cracks in the Liberty’s execution during the finals series.
There’s also the matter of motivation. New York’s quest for revenge fueled the team in 2024, and that is gone. Jonquel Jones credited the loss in 2023 for getting the Liberty back to the finals. “I wholeheartedly believe that if we (won) it last year, we’re not here right now,” she said. “As a unit, as a whole, (we) understood how tough it was going to be to win a championship, and that we had a different level that we could take it to. I think we would have got complacent if we won last year, to be honest.”
The influx of new role players who brought a different energy into the locker room helped guard against complacency this season. In addition to New York’s three stars (Stewart, Jones and Sabrina Ionescu) being better than they were in 2023, the front office also built a deeper roster during the 2024 offseason, one with more lineup versatility for the postseason run. “It’s hard to win because this league is so good. You need a little bit of luck on your side, but you also need talent,” Brondello said after the finals. “You also need talent, the right talent to put together.”
Leonie Fiebich, who had been acquired in a 2023 trade, came over from Germany after a full-court recruiting press as a big wing who could help solve the Liberty’s perimeter defense woes. Fiebich was deployed on Allisha Gray, Kelsey Plum, Courtney Williams and Kayla McBride throughout the playoffs, assignments that would have gone last season to Ionescu or Vandersloot.
Burke joined the Liberty after a year away from the WNBA and provided frontcourt depth. Burke’s defensive positioning came in handy during the semifinal series against Las Vegas, and she played 13 minutes in the closeout win.
The front office also gambled that second-year center Nyara Sabally was ready to be the full-time backup despite playing 260 minutes (less than eight per game) as a rookie. A back injury kept Sabally out for the entirety of June, but she improved as the season went on and played a pivotal role in the WNBA Finals. New York would not have won without her rim pressure in Game 5.
NYNY PULLS A FAST ONE 💨
ALL gas NO brakes for @nyarasabally tonight! ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/pFVZE6C7s2
— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) October 21, 2024
The acquisitions of Fiebich and Burke required some ingenuity. New York inserted itself in the Marina Mabrey trade in 2023, capitalizing on Phoenix’s immediate need for help on the wing. The Liberty gave up Michaela Onyenwere, who would have had difficulty staying on the roster after the acquisitions of Stewart and Kayla Thornton, and recouped Fiebich and a first-round pick swap in 2025 that will move them up five spots in the upcoming draft.
New York was able to entice Burke to come over from the French league with a guaranteed contract, which are usually reserved for high-profile players. However, the Liberty were able to convince Stewart and Ionescu to sign unprotected deals, with both players knowing the Liberty would never waive them, so that the protected contract was available for Burke. That gave the veteran the confidence to leave her European season early knowing a spot was waiting for her in New York.
“(Kolb) built this team to be able to withstand anything that any of the opponents in the W are going to be able to throw at us,” Jones said.
Defending a title is a unique challenge, a feat only one team in the WNBA has accomplished in the last two decades. Maybe New York is unburdened from the pursuit of its first title and will play like the most talented team in the league. Or the burden of being the favorite might provide a new layer of pressure. Either way, there is no denying that greatness should be expected from the Liberty. They came together to win titles, and that mission has only just begun.
(Photo: David Berding / Getty Images)
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