WNBA: 2024 title caps the roller-coaster history of New York Liberty

The New York Liberty have finally reached the mountaintop.

In an epic back-and-forth Finals with the Minnesota Lynx, they won the decisive Game 5 67-62 before a roaring sold-out crowd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The game also brought in a record-number 2.2 million television viewers.

It not only marked the first title in the franchise’s 28-year history, but also the first professional basketball title for New York since the Nets won the 1976 ABA championship. It’s the culmination of a journey that started all the way back at the beginning of the league in 1997, as New York joined Houston, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Utah, Sacramento and Cleveland as one of the original eight teams.

From the start, the Liberty were a marquee feature, with the talents like Rebecca Lobo, Teresa Weatherspoon, Crystal Robinson, Kym Hampton, and Becky Hammon. They made four Finals appearances from 1997-2002, twice losing to the dynastic Comets. The Liberty earned a place in the annals of basketball history in Game 2 of the 1999 Finals, when Weatherspoon hit a buzzer-beating shot from beyond half court to tie the series against the Comets at one game a piece. Though the Liberty lost the deciding Game 3, Weatherspoon’s “The Shot” remains one of the league’s iconic moments.

For a time, New York was a perennial contender, making 19 playoff appearances and playing at the famed Madison Square Garden from 1997 to 2018.

But after losing in the 2002 WNBA Finals to the Sparks, things started to slide downward. Lobo was traded to Houston in 2001. Weatherspoon’s Liberty career came to an end in 2003. New York won only 11 games in 2006. Hammon, who was the star player in the mid-2000s, was traded to the San Antonio Stars in 2007. By the end of the 2000s, the Liberty were lingering in the league’s basement.

Things started to pick up under head coach Anne Donovan in the early 2010s. A squad led by Cappie Pondexter and Taj McWilliams-Franklin made the Eastern Conference Finals in 2010, where they lost to the Atlanta Dream. From 2011 to 2013, the Liberty were forced out of Madison Square Garden due to renovations, playing at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

In 2015, NBA legend Isiah Thomas was hired as the president of basketball operations. He named his Detroit Pistons teammate Bill Lambeer as head coach and acquired superstar Tina Charles in a trade. The Liberty finished first in the Eastern Conference that year. The following year, they made it back to the playoffs before losing in the second round to the Phoenix Mercury. In 2017, they lost in the second round to the Washington Mystics.

That same year, owner James Dolan announced he was selling the franchise. In the beginning, there wasn’t a buyer so the Liberty had to play home games at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, a 90-year-old facility which housed the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League. The Liberty went from playing in front of 10,000 fans to barely 3,000.

Then, the turning point came in 2019 when the franchise was purchased by the husband-and-wife team of Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, who owned part of the Brooklyn Nets. The team was relocated to the Barclays Center, where they’ve found a permanent home. After acquiring Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton in 2020, the team started to become a draw again. They hired Sandy Brondello as head coach and eventually brought along Courtney Vandersloot, Jonquel Jones, and Breanna Stewart to round out their core.

Now, they are playing before packed houses every night as celebrities sit courtside.

They started at the top, downsized to the mid floor and then fell into the dark abyss of the basement before climbing their way back to the top with sheer grit and persistence.

Now, they’re champs.