Baby, this what you came for…
Yes, this is what Jonquel Jones came for. The lyric, sung by Jones’ fellow Caribbean native Rihanna, expresses the 2024 WNBA Finals MVP’s journey to top of the women’s basketball world.
Her hoops career has been defined by sacrifices. Leaving the Bahamas at age 14 to come to the United States with hopes of advancing her basketball career. Coming off the bench, and winning Sixth Player of the Year, for the Connecticut Sun in 2018 after being named a first-time WNBA All-Star and the league’s Most Improved Player in 2017. Playing overseas for Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Korea, China, Russia and Turkey not just to develop her game but also to access financial opportunities to benefit her family and young, aspiring basketball players in the Bahamas. Accepting a reduced role on the Sun after winning the 2021 WNBA MVP award. Choosing to join the New York Liberty during the 2023 offseason, where, as a member of a “super team,” her singular star power would not shine as bright.
But this—a WNBA championship and WNBA Finals MVP—is why she did it. She earned what she was coming for.
And along the way, the series of sacrifices Jones made in her search of greatness have resulted in just that; she quietly has compiled one of the greatest careers in WNBA history.
She’s the only player in league history whose trophy case includes a Most Improved Player, Sixth Player of the Year, MVP, Commissioner’s Cup MVP and, now, Finals MVP award, with a championship trophy to top it off. She’s gathered five All-WNBA honors, four All-Defensive nominations and five trips to the All-Star Game. The career averages behind those achievements are 13.3 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, while shooting almost 52 percent from the field and nearly 38 percent from 3. Those numbers have translated to efficient impact, hence all the awards. Her career true shooting percentage is the second-best in league history, while her effective field goal percentage is the third-best of all-time. That explains why her career offensive rating of 116.9 is the fourth-best ever. She, in short, in an offensive force. And she still does it on both sides of the ball, with the third-highest defensive rebounding percentage in WNBA history. Her 90 career double-doubles put her at eighth all-time, tied with teammate Breanna Stewart.
In her 47 career playoff games, Jones has been even better, averaging 16.1 points on 52.5 percent shooting, along with 9.6 rebounds. In the 2024 Finals, she increased her scoring to almost 18 points per game, shooting 56.1 percent from the field and 42.9 percent from 3. In a series where offense increasingly was hard to come by, Jones’ wide-ranging skillset—with the ability to score smoothly at all three levels at 6-foot-6, combined the armor necessary to fight for ugly buckets inside—separated the Liberty, just enough, from the Minnesota Lynx. In the decisive Game 5 slugfest, she made half of her field goals and all of her free throws as she scored a team-high 17 points. In a game the Liberty won by five points, they were a team-high 10 points better in Jones’ 42 minutes.
And so as the confetti fell from the rafters of the Barclays Center, everyone, deservedly, was watching her—the Finals MVP—as she got what she came for: a WNBA championship.
