The bright lights of Barclays Center, loud fan engagement, an ebullient elephant mascot named Ellie, and some of the most prominent stars in the WNBA define the reputation of the New York Liberty.
After 28 years as a franchise, the team finally reached its zenith in 2024 by winning its first championship in the same year the WNBA welcomed Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. The Liberty’s dramatic five-game Finals against the Minnesota Lynx in October of 2024 was one of the most-watched series in league history, which averaged 1.57 million viewers across all five games.
A season later, a revolving door of injuries, and irreconcilable differences between the coaching staff and the front office defined the Liberty’s 2025. In a season where the goal was to return to the WNBA finals for a third-straight year, they lost in the first round of the postseason and two-time WNBA champion coach Sandy Brondello, who helped lead the team to two previous Finals, was fired.
New York will make its return to NBC for the first time since the 2002 WNBA Finals on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET against the Dallas Wings at home. On Monday, they’ll take on the Portland Fire at home as they play for a third time this season on Peacock.
The Liberty remain in a championship window that revolves around their three superstars Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones, and Breanna Stewart, a group that came together in 2023 when both Stewart and Jones took their talents to New York to join Ionescu in the largest media market in the United States.
But with a new coaching staff led by former Golden State Warriors longtime assistant Chris DeMarco, plus a revamped supporting cast around the Ionescu-Jones-Stewart trio — including free-agent signing Satou Sabally, the return of Betnijah Laney-Hamilton after missing the 2025 season with a knee injury, and 24-year-old “pro rookie” Pauline Astier — the Liberty are not in a position to simply pick up where they left off.
Those new ingredients yield to some growing pains especially when rosters were constructed just days before training camp due to the prolonged negotiations of the WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement. Players couldn’t get a head start and be in-market like they could be during previous offseason periods.
As a result there’s an understanding that a perfect season and dominance across the entire season, including trying to win the mid-season Commissioner’s Cup Championship, aren’t obligatory as long as the team is hoisting their second WNBA Finals trophy by October.
New York Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb expressed as much back in late May when he addressed the media for his state of the Liberty press conference. He reiterated New York’s championship intentions while also understanding that head coach DeMarco’s brand new style was going to take time to master.
“I think it’s just about being patient with the process,” Kolb said. “But again, we know what we’re here to do. We know where our goals are, which is a championship.”
But that philosophy can be in conflict with where the Liberty are now versus where they were as many as four years ago. Four years ago the fanbase didn’t match the fervor that it has now and that’s a result of much more eyes on the team and the league writ large. Four years ago the Liberty didn’t have a roster with five WNBA All-Stars.
Stewart explained this friction and how there’s nuance in the team’s progress this season.
“There’s still pressure because this is New York, because we are the Liberty, and people still want to beat us because of what we have and who we have here,” she said during training camp. “And embracing that and really knowing that every single time. We’re not just gonna not care about May just because we have new concepts.”
So what exactly are these new concepts? DeMarco, Kolb and Liberty players have spoken openly about how there aren’t many scripted plays but rather there are general rules of spacing that DeMarco wants the players to follow.
Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase sees some homage being paid to where DeMarco came from in how he has the Liberty playing. “I do see a little bit of resemblance of the five out and the spacing of Jonquel Jones handling the ball [like] how Draymond Green handled the ball in the five out.”
When DeMarco describes his new Liberty offense, however, he mentions that he wants his team playing one-on-one basketball, initially a phrase that’s associated with more “selfish” NBA-branded basketball. But how is that so, especially when the Liberty have the highest assist percentage in the league as of now? Are the Liberty really playing “selfish” basketball?
DeMarco explained to reporters that one-on-one basketball doesn’t mean selfish basketball but instead refers to players trying to create advantages via one-on-one drives which design open shots for either the driver or their teammates. “If you’re open, shoot it,” he said. “If not, make a play for someone else.”
If you’ve been following the WNBA’s evolution since 2022, that phrase should sound awfully familiar. It was almost eerily close to the catchphrase that Las Vegas head coach and three-time WNBA champion Becky Hammon uttered ad nauseum during her first season at the helm of the Aces.
“If you’re open, you shoot it,” she would say. “If you’re not, pass it.” It’s almost identical to what DeMarco said. Hammon would always tell reporters how simple of a concept it was. That same vibe is now present in New York.
Aside from a different system for the Liberty to continue to work through, other obstacles remain, some of which were anticipated and some of which weren’t.
Leonie Fiebich, the team’s six-foot-four staunch perimeter defender and three-point sniper, was always going to report to the WNBA late due to her commitments playing in the Spanish league for Valencia. And her teammate in Valencia, Spanish forward Raquel Carrera, is also going to play a critical role coming off the bench for the Liberty in 2026. Carrera, whose rights the Liberty acquired in 2022, is another 24 year-old “pro rookie”.
But what New York couldn’t anticipate was that Ionescu and Sabally began the regular season on the sidelines. Ionescu has yet to make her season debut after she rolled her ankle during the Liberty’s second preseason game against the Connecticut Sun on May 1. That could happen on Sunday, especially since the Liberty waived Julie Vanloo on Friday afternoon, a hardship player who the New York signed in Ionescu’s absence.
Sabally made her debut on Thursday night against the Valkyries, her first game of organized basketball since October. That was when she sustained a concussion during Game 4 of the 2025 WNBA Finals while playing for the Mercury. She wasn’t just reconditioning from her time away from the court. During training camp she sustained a cyst that kept her from participating in game action for a couple of weeks.
This all presents yet another challenge for the Liberty: How are some of these key players coming back from injury and joining the team from overseas integrated in? And, how do the players who have been playing in their place in the rotation adjust to coming off the bench?
French guards Astier and Marine Johannès, who have stepped up in the first few weeks of the season, could see their roles shift. DeMarco explained this situation as one where with the players the Liberty had out, they could “elevate” their role players and get the most out of their stars.
This is a concept to keep an eye on, as Kolb is known for constructing his rosters with playable depth. In the past under Brondello, this was both a blessing and a curse because talented players like Johannès would either not see the floor as often or would get shoehorned into a role where they couldn’t play at their most free. Brondello valued the core rotation gaining chemistry, and when she shepherded the Liberty’s core group through its first couple of years together, that’s what they needed.
But under DeMarco, New York’s depth has the potential to be just a net positive rather than a point of contention.
“What I think is even when you see our offense playing at quite a fast pace, I don’t think you can really consistently night after night having players play 40 minutes,” Liberty wing Rebecca Allen told NBC Sports. “So I think the rotation piece does come in there, where you do need to have fresh legs. You do need to have that turnover. That plays into the role of really the system that [DeMarco] has put together as well, and then to have the depth, so that there’s no drop off every single time you do have those rotations.”
Assuming no injuries, the name of the game the Liberty will need to continue to play throughout the season will be testing out their versatility and lineup combinations. That’s part of the patience that’s required for the team to be peaking at the right time and get to where they need to go.
But there also lies the tension once again. How do the Liberty experiment but also win games at the same time? This is a roster that has the largest collection of talent in the league and therefore the highest ceiling. What happens when they underperform? How will the team respond to the criticism that being a team in New York demands?
After a handful of games into the season, that pressure has already come into focus.
The Liberty got blown out 87-70 on their home floor against Golden State on Thursday night. Sure, this was Sabally’s first game in around six months and Ionescu didn’t suit up either. Laney-Hamilton was out with a personal issue. Fiebich was still en route to New York, and Carrera didn’t play after appearing for the first time at the team’s shootaround on Thursday morning.
New York turned the ball over 15 times against one of the most disciplined defenses in the WNBA. New York also struggled defensively and was late to closing out on shooters. According to Sabally, players were overhelping and struggling to trust one another.
“It’s disappointing to lose no matter what, and I think it’s just obviously a learning experience for us,” Jones said postgame. “It’s still early in the season, we’re not making excuses, but we do understand that we’re not where we want to be, and we’re definitely not in playoff mode yet, nor do we expect to be. So we’re still learning, we’re still going to grow from this, and we’ll be okay.”
How do they reach a point of being “okay” amid all the newness along with expectations up the wazoo? That will be New York’s central storyline this season.
