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      ‘We’re Hungry’: The Liberty Aim High in a Bounce-Back Season

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      The Liberty had the worst record in the W.N.B.A. last year. But the return of Sabrina Ionescu and the addition of league veterans could turn things around.Liberty Coach Walt Hopkins and his staff reviewed last season’s film looking for answers beyond the box scores and advanced analytics. Why was their defensive rating so low? Who was getting burned on screens? It was a trying year for a first-year head coach and his team, which ended with the second-worst winning percentage in W.N.B.A. history and a 2-20 record.The Liberty were young and inexperienced, playing as many as six rookies. Sabrina Ionescu, the 2020 No. 1 overall pick, severely sprained her ankle in her third game and missed the rest of the season. Key contributors such as Rebecca Allen, Marine Johannes and Asia Durr opted out of playing.Wins weren’t everything for a franchise rebuilding without Tina Charles, the 6-foot-4 center who had led the team in scoring every season since 2014. The Liberty made strides reinventing their style of play. On offense, the focus was on spacing and 3-point shooting. On defense, players were instructed not to over-help on picks. The Liberty shot 41.5 percent of their field goals from 3-point range, the most in W.N.B.A. history, after shooting 28.2 percent of them from there the year before.While expectations were tempered then, the franchise will introduce four veterans new to the team in its debut season at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.Here’s what you need to know:Best Addition: Natasha HowardSpotlight on Offense: Sabrina IonescuSpotlight on Defense: Betnijah LaneyThe Rookie: Michaela OnyenwereBiggest LossesReason for OptimismCause for ConcernBest Addition: Natasha HowardNatasha Howard, acquired in a trade with Seattle, was a major off-season addition because of her defense and on-court leadership.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe Liberty tried to speed up their rebuild by trading the 2021 No. 1 pick, a 2022 first-round pick from the Phoenix Mercury and their own 2022 second-round pick to the Seattle Storm to acquire Natasha Howard. A 6-2 forward, Howard is a three-time W.N.B.A. champion and was a starter during the Storm’s 2018 and 2020 title runs, but her career year was 2019.With Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart sidelined with injuries, Howard, alongside guard Jewell Loyd, carried Seattle while notching career highs across the board. She averaged 18.1 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 2.2 steals a game and won the Defensive Player of the Year Award after blocking 1.7 shots per game. She has proved she can lead a team. With the Liberty, she will have that opportunity again.Spotlight on Offense: Sabrina IonescuAll eyes will be on Ionescu, the 5-11 University of Oregon sensation. She will run a free-flowing offense designed around her passing ability and shooting range.In 80 total minutes before her injury, Ionescu scored 55 points on 19-of-42 shooting, including a highlight-filled 33-point game in which she sank six 3-pointers and had seven assists and seven rebounds. That was without running sets with a player as accomplished as Howard. How will teams guard their quickness and savvy in a pick-and-roll?“I don’t know,” the Liberty assistant coach Jacki Gemelos said. “How does one guard a pick-and-roll with other duos in the league like Chelsea Gray and Candace Parker, or whoever? You just kind of got to cross your fingers and: ‘Let’s hope they just don’t score this play. Let’s try and get the ball out of their hands.’ It’s going to be scary. And again, as a spectator, as a coach, I’m looking forward to it as well.”Spotlight on Defense: Betnijah LaneyBetnijah Laney, right, won the Most Improved Player Award with the Atlanta Dream last season.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressBetnijah Laney was the Liberty’s biggest free-agent signing of the off-season, which is an improbable designation for someone cut by the Indiana Fever eight months earlier.Over 22 games with the Atlanta Dream last season, Laney more than tripled her scoring average from the previous season in just 7.7 additional minutes. She posted 17.2 points per game on 48.1 percent shooting from the field and 40.5 percent shooting from 3-point range. She won the Most Improved Player of the Year Award and earned all-defensive first team honors.“I think Betnijah’s whole setup is going to be just so different from Atlanta,” Gemelos said. “I think she’s going to have more people setting her up. It’s going to make things a lot easier for her.”Gemelos was Laney’s teammate with the Chicago Sky in 2015.“To see how her game has developed from then until now, it’s just scary,” Gemelos said. “She’s just one of those players who can play multiple positions. She’s fearless offensively and defensively. I would let her guard anyone in the league, and I’d be completely confident that she’s going to get the job done.”The Rookie: Michaela OnyenwereMichaela Onyenwere, a rookie out of U.C.L.A., has the shooting touch to contribute from distance and the strength to get to the rim.Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesForward Michaela Onyenwere, the No. 6 pick in this year’s draft, should find a place in the Liberty’s rotation. At U.C.L.A., she had 19.1 points and 7.2 rebounds a game in her senior season. She has the shooting touch to contribute from distance and the strength to get to the rim. If she can relieve Laney as a defensive stalwart who crashes the boards and stretches the floor, she’ll make a considerable first-year impact.Biggest LossesKia Nurse, Amanda Zahui B. and the No. 1 pickTwo Liberty mainstays won’t be at Barclays. Kia Nurse was traded to the Mercury, and Amanda Zahui B., who spent five years with the Liberty at center, signed with the Los Angeles Sparks in free agency.Nurse showed promise in a breakout sophomore campaign that included an All-Star selection. Zahui B. started 20 of the team’s 22 games last season, averaging career highs in points (9) and rebounds (8.5).Reason for OptimismThe roster is much improved.It’s reasonable for fans to doubt the franchise with the worst record last season will be able to rebound quickly, but the roster has drastically improved.Sami Whitcomb, a two-time champion with the Storm who was part of the Howard trade, is solid from 3 (38.1 percent last season). Even better is Rebecca Allen, who made 42.6 percent of her 3-pointers in 2019 and is back after opting out last season. Plus, Jazmine Jones, who was named to the all-rookie first team last season, can build off her stellar campaign. She averaged 10.8 points a game off the bench.Laney is confident that the inclusion of new veterans will make a difference.“We’re hungry,” she said, adding, “We’re not going to back down and roll over for anyone.”Cause for ConcernCan a franchise turn around this quickly?Though a significant roster overhaul can be a good thing, it won’t be an easy transition. Hopkins will have to teach his system to different groups in waves. Howard, Allen and Kiah Stokes, for example, are latecomers because of overseas commitments.Best OutcomeThe Liberty make the playoffs.If the new team gels, the Liberty could set its sights on the postseason.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe Liberty aren’t likely to compete for a championship, but if Ionescu can play consistently at the level she showed in her 33-point game last season, Laney can keep shooting well and Howard can thrive as a go-to scorer the way she did in 2019, the Liberty can be in the playoff hunt.Worst OutcomeToo many new pieces slow development, and the team returns to the W.N.B.A. basement.With players arriving late, and so much change from last season’s group, maybe the transition into a 3-point-heavy offensive system won’t go to plan. Precision is everything, and despite shooting so many 3-pointers last season, the Liberty made a league-low 27.7 percent of their looks from distance. They also scored the fewest points per 100 possessions by a mile, finishing 11.7 points per 100 possessions below the next-worst team, Atlanta.This offense isn’t foolproof.Ionescu for Rookie of the Year (Again)?Hopkins isn’t trying to start a fire over the discussion, but if Ionescu plays to her potential, she won’t have the chance to win the Rookie of the Year Award despite playing just two full games and leaving her third with an ankle injury.“She’s a rookie,” Hopkins said when asked. “I mean, she played two games and had to leave the bubble. She didn’t even get to spend the whole season with us. She’s by all accounts in her fourth week of being a W.N.B.A. player. Yeah, I feel strongly about that one. I don’t think it’s fair that she doesn’t get to be in contention.”Hopkins added: “So she never gets to be in contention for rookie of the year? What experience did she get? I don’t believe she was going to be on people’s ballots last year after playing two games. I don’t think anybody would have thought that was reasonable. So why do we think it’s reasonable that she doesn’t get to play her rookie year now?” More

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      W.N.B.A. Preview: The Mystics Get Their Stars Back in the East

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      Also: Much has changed for the Atlanta Dream since last season, and Candace Parker brings championship hopes to the Chicago Sky.The W.N.B.A. begins its 25th season on Friday with the returns of some big-name veterans and the debuts of promising rookies.“Rosters are stacked with incredibly talented veterans, and the last few rookie classes are bringing a whole new element to the fierce competition within the league,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told The New York Times.Below, our reporters tell you what to expect this season in the Eastern Conference. (And here’s what to expect in the West.)Washington MysticsNatasha Cloud opted out of the 2020 season to focus on social justice.Jessica Hill/Associated PressThe Mystics are hoping to rebound from a forgettable 9-13 season, which they played without Elena Delle Donne, who won her second Most Valuable Player Award in 2019 as she led the team to a championship, and Natasha Cloud, who sat out to focus on social justice.This year, Delle Donne and Cloud are back and they will finally get to play alongside another former M.V.P. in Tina Charles, who went to Washington in a trade from the Liberty but opted out of last season for health reasons.“Even though we have some people out, we’ve lost some people to injury, we still have a really scary team on paper,” Cloud said during media day, adding: “I think we’re going to shock a lot of people in this league. You know me, that’s the underdog mentality, so we’re ready.”One positive from last season’s short-handed squad was the emergence of Myisha Hines-Allen, who averaged 17 points per game and shot 42.6 percent from 3-point range. She might not be relied upon as much this season, with a healthy Delle Donne and Charles in the lineup, but she is another reliable option on defense after averaging 8.9 rebounds per game last season.Hines-Allen could also fill in a gap in outside shooting: Alysha Clark, who signed with Washington as a free agent after winning a championship with Seattle last year, is out for the season after injuring her foot while playing overseas. Clark shot 52.2 percent from 3-point range last season.Atlanta DreamChennedy Carter missed time with injuries during her rookie season but could have a bounce-back second year.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press“I’ve got no idea what positions you play,” Mike Petersen, the Dream’s interim head coach, said he told his players. “But if I don’t know, the other team’s got no chance.”Atlanta’s off-season has been marked by change. Pressured by players, the Dream’s previous owners sold the team to a group that included Renee Montgomery, a former Dream player. Gone are Chris Sienko, the team’s former president and general manager who was fired in April, and Nicki Collen, the former head coach who left for a job at Baylor earlier this month. Now Petersen will exchange convention for creativity to get the best out of an eclectic roster.Calling it “silly” to follow the practice of assigning players numbered positions, Petersen said he will form lineups with the five best players, regardless of position. “Basketball players are basketball players,” he said. “Everybody has to be able to pass, dribble and shoot. And everybody has to play defense.”On the Dream, those bodies are small: Aari McDonald, the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft, is 5-foot-6; the veterans Odyssey Sims and Courtney Williams are both 5-foot-8; and Chennedy Carter, picked fourth overall in the 2020 draft, and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, in her first season with the Dream, each stand 5-foot-9.Petersen did not hesitate to play three guards during the team’s lone preseason matchup on May 5. And if these smaller players with big games execute what he envisions, perimeter shooting will spread the floor for the 6-foot-7 center Kalani Brown and the 6-foot-4 forward Cheyenne Parker, a free-agency acquisition, to operate in the paint.New York LibertyNew York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu underwent surgery for an injured ankle and is ready to return this season.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressAll eyes are on the Liberty this season for many reasons. Chief among them is the return of last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Sabrina Ionescu.Ionescu’s much-anticipated rookie season was cut short when she suffered a Grade 3 ankle sprain during the first half of the Liberty’s third game.Her season over before it began, Ionescu underwent surgery but is back and ready to go.“I’m excited for this season,” Ionescu said in a call with reporters. “I’m taking it one day and one step at a time.”Along with managing Ionescu’s return, the second-year head coach Walt Hopkins will have to handle the unexpected loss of guard/forward Jocelyn Willoughby, who is out for the season after tearing her left Achilles’ tendon. In 2020, her rookie year, Willoughby averaged 5.8 points and 2.4 rebounds per game while shooting a team-best 40.5 percent from 3-point range in 22 games, five of which she started.But here’s what should help: the off-season acquisitions of the three-time champion Natasha Howard and the two-time champion Sami Whitcomb from the Seattle Storm, and Betnijah Laney, who won last year’s Most Improved Player Award and was named to the All-Defensive team after a breakout season with the Atlanta Dream.The Liberty finished 2020 in last place with a 2-20 record and are still searching for an identity and footing.“Everyone wants to be here, they want to win, they want to support one another,” Hopkins said. “If we learned anything from last year it’s how to bounce back from a loss.”Indiana FeverIndiana Fever forward Lauren Cox, right, missed the beginning of last season after testing positive for the coronavirus.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe Fever finished last season with the lowest-ranked defense (111.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) and missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year. This season, the second-year Coach Marianne Stanley’s goal is to have a stronger defensive identity.“Each and every player on this team needs to buy in to the defensive end of the floor and make sure they’re doing everything they can to improve and make us a team that is stingy on defense,” Stanley said during her media day news conference.Indiana gets a shot in the arm with a healthy Lauren Cox, who missed the beginning of last season after testing positive for the coronavirus, and a positive outlook for Victoria Vivians, who last played a full season in 2018. Stanley said Vivians had been an early standout during training camp.Add to that the growing star power of Kysre Gondrezick, drafted fourth over all this year out of West Virginia, and the Fever are on the cusp of having not just a stronger defensive identity, but a concrete team identity as well.“She’s shooting the ball well,” Stanley said of Gondrezick. “She’s fitting in with her teammates. Just getting adjusted to the rigors. Just about as we expected. She’s a pretty well-rounded guard, and we really like what we’re seeing in her.”The Fever lost Candice Dupree to Seattle in free agency but added Danielle Robinson and the bigs Jantel Lavender and Jessica Breland.Chicago SkyChicago Sky guard Courtney Vandersloot set a single-game assist record last year with 18.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressArguably no other team had a better off-season than the Sky, who landed Candace Parker, the top free agent, champion and winner of last season’s Defense Player of the Year Award.Parker, who had spent her entire career with the Los Angeles Sparks, will add veteran experience to Chicago, a team two years removed from an unexpected playoff run and coach of the year honors for James Wade.The Sky’s star power continues with shooting guard Diamond DeShields and forward/center Azura Stevens, who are both returning from injury, and Courtney Vandersloot, who set a single-game assist record last year with 18.With a stellar roster headlined by Parker, and a high-scoring offense (ranked fourth last season) expectations for the Sky are, well, sky-high.“I think it creates expectations from outside,” Wade said. “My goal is to just get us better, that’s it. We’ll end up where we are going to end up.“Having the players we have, it puts us in a conversation where people think we can do better than a lot of other teams. I just try to get us in situations where we can win games and build some confidence around what we want to do.”Connecticut SunConnecticut Sun forward Jonquel Jones, left, battling for the ball against Washington Mystics center Emma Meesseman.Nick Wass/Associated PressIn 2020, the Connecticut Sun once again overperformed. Without the 6-foot-6 forward Jonquel Jones, who sat out the season, the Sun still managed to nearly knock off the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces in the playoffs. Their upset-filled run to the semifinals was fueled in large part by Alyssa Thomas’s tireless defense and consistent scoring; even after she dislocated her shoulder early in the Sun’s second game against the Aces, Thomas led the team to victory two days later with a double-double.Thomas won’t be with the Sun this season, though, meaning they once again will be short-staffed. She injured her Achilles’ tendon while playing overseas, and isn’t slated to return until 2022. Jones is back, though, and together with the veteran star DeWanna Bonner — 6 feet 4 inches — creates an unenviable matchup for even the league’s most elite bigs.The Sun have favored a slower, grind-it-out pace, averaging the third-least points per game in the W.N.B.A. last season. But without the defensive might of Thomas and with two forwards who can shoot 3s in Bonner and Jones, it seems possible they might favor a more offense-oriented style in 2021.Forward Brionna Jones reached a new level in 2020, more than tripling her points per game and becoming an important contributor on defense as well; now, she adds to the size and overall athleticism of the Sun. The veteran guards Briann January and Jasmine Thomas round out the starting lineup. More

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      New York Sports Entering a Promising Era

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.The Friendship of LeBron and Anthony DavisThe N.B.A. Wanted HerMissing Klay ThompsonKobe the #GirlDadAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn New York SportsThat Strange Feeling Going Around New York Is OptimismAfter two decades of frustration and incompetence broken up by an occasional championship (thanks, Giants), the region’s sports teams all appear headed in the right direction.Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving have the Nets poised to be true championship contenders for the first time since Jason Kidd was playing for the team.Credit…Jason Miller/Getty ImagesFeb. 23, 2021Updated 9:08 a.m. ETIt was a rough couple of decades for sports in New York, and not just because of the incessant losing. The last 20 years was an era of general ineptitude marked by a butt fumble, a Ponzi scheme, failed coaches, disgraced executives, a team hero getting dragged out of the arena by security and losing seasons stacking up like rotting garbage bags in the snow.To be a New York sports fan through all of that was a mental and emotional test of endurance just to remain loyal during perhaps the worst two-decade stretch for sports in the region.The dozen or so teams in the country’s biggest market, with all their resources and expectations, competed for a possible 223 championships over that period in six different leagues, but won only four titles, or 1.8 percent. Boston, a much smaller city, won 12 out of a possible 99 and one team in a an even tinier market — the San Antonio Spurs — won just as many as all the New York teams combined, despite having only 20 chances.But maybe, just maybe, the collective suffering is coming to a merciful end. You might have to look deep in a couple of cases, but for the first time in years, all the arrows seem to be pointing up.“We are on the cusp of maybe a good 10-year run where all the teams are in contention in their respective sport,” said Boomer Esiason, the Long Island-bred former N.F.L. M.V.P. who, as the host of the drive-time morning show on WFAN radio, has the pulse of the fans. “It’s really a fascinating time in New York sports.”Of course, it could all go sideways in the blink of a stupid trade or a shredded elbow, especially with articles like this one to jinx it. For now, optimism reigns as fans are allowed back in arenas and stadiums in limited numbers, and the following words can be typed in succession for the first time in ages: The Nets are stacked, the Mets are poised, the Giants seem to be building something real, the Jets have a bushel of draft picks and a commanding new coach. And the Knicks — the Knicks! — actually seem to know what they are doing.OK, we know you are skeptical. Twenty years of sports PTSD will do that. But here is a closer look at how the various New York teams are faring.Julius Randle, center, has received All-Star buzz but the team has several other promising young players like Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett.Credit…Jason Decrow/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Nets are contenders. The Knicks are competent!The most astonishing turnaround in the metropolitan region at the moment belongs to the Knicks.People under the age of 30 may not remember, but there was a time when the Knicks owned New York, even more than the Yankees. When they played the Chicago Bulls, the Indiana Pacers or the Miami Heat in the playoffs in the 1990s, the city went on pause. That changed, coincidentally or not, around the same time James Dolan took ownership of the team and the Knicks only made the playoffs (barely) five times over 20 seasons.But the future for the Knicks shimmers a little brighter now with a combination of exciting young players, a highly respected head coach in Tom Thibodeau and a sensible executive with a vision in charge of it all (Leon Rose, that is, not Dolan).Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin are impressing in their first few months in the league. RJ Barrett, a former No. 3 over all pick, is only a year ahead of them on the development scale. And Julius Randle, a rare free agent success for the team, has broken out to become a star. With everyone committing to Thibodeau’s defensive mandate, the Knicks are floating close to .500 for the first time in eight years and are actually watchable again.“One hundred percent they are headed in the right direction,” said Isiah Thomas, the Hall of Fame point guard, N.B.A. analyst and former Knicks coach and executive. “Under Leon Rose and Thibodeau, what they have established with his defensive mentality is already paying dividends.”Sabrina Ionescu didn’t get much of a rookie season because of an injury, but she is expected to lead the Liberty into a promising new era.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressWhile the Knicks are building organically, the Nets took the just-add-water approach with a powerful mix of three superstars — Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving. The Nets, fresh off a five-game sweep on the West Coast, are the No. 2 team in the Eastern Conference behind the Philadelphia 76ers and are title contenders for the first time since the Jason Kidd (playing) era.The Liberty have been quietly atrocious the last three years, but in 2020 they selected the incomparable point guard Sabrina Ionescu with the No. 1 over all pick in the W.N.B.A. draft. She played in only three games her rookie season because of an ankle injury, but is expected to help transform the team. Adding Natasha Howard, an All-Star who has won multiple championships, can’t hurt.Oh, and St. John’s men’s team is playing tough defense, too, and is over .500.Taken as a whole, Thomas said, “It’s very positive for basketball in New York right now.”Shortstop Francisco Lindor is expected to solidify the Mets’ defense while providing a middle-of-the-order bat.Credit…Gene J. Puskar/Associated PressD.J. LeMahieu and Luke Voit are two of the many bright spots for a loaded Yankees offense.Credit…Mike Stobe/Getty ImagesThe Mets have a savior. The Yankees are the Yankees.It is impossible to look past the Mets repeatedly hiring men accused of harassment, but the actual team on the field should be in for an exciting summer. Many of those fans waited years for an owner like Steven Cohen to take the team from the Wilpons and start spreading his billions around like a wiseguy at a craps game, but their best off-season move was a trade for Francisco Lindor, a transformational player. For now, fans and players alike believe Cohen will deliver a winner to Flushing. Luis Rojas, the Mets manager said the players’ optimism was palpable on the first day of spring training.“You feel the energy from the guys as far as talking about the passion that our new owners has shown in the off-season,” Rojas said.As for the Yankees, let’s cut them some slack for only winning one World Series since 2000. Ordinarily, that would be an abject failure, but compared to the other slouches in town, at least they actually grabbed one. For sheer consistency of effort over that time, the Yankees stood alone in the region.Coach Joe Judge appears to have changed the tone for the Giants.Credit…Adam Hunger/Associated PressCoach Robert Saleh is expected to bring intensity to the Jets’ sideline.Credit…Doug Benc/Associated PressIn new coaches, the New York football teams trust.Look, we know the last five years or so of football in New Jersey has been excruciating for the fans. But …“There is no question that both franchises are on the upswing,” said Esiason, who is also an N.F.L. analyst for CBS. “Both Giants and Jets fans feel there is an optimism surrounding the team, for different reasons.”Finding something positive about the Jets is really an undertaking for a historian. Actually, a geologist — what does the carbon dating reveal about their only trophy? Paleolithic period? Jurassic? After all, the Jets (2-14 last season) can’t even lose properly. By winning a second game, they missed out on a generational No. 1 draft pick. Trevor Lawrence almost certainly won’t be a Jet, but the No. 2 pick is better than, say, the No. 3 pick, and they have many more picks in the holster, too.“I would love to see Joe Douglas’s white board,” Esiason, who played for the Jets, said about the team’s shockingly competent general manager. “They’ve got tons of options.”They also have a new coach, Robert Saleh, whom people already love before he has run a practice. The Jets clearly took note of the success of their fellow Jersey swamp residents’ new tough-guy coach, and hired one of their own.Much of the hope surrounding the Giants emanates from that coach. Joe Judge changed the culture in his first year and led the G-men to six wins, which in the awful N.F.C. East made them a playoff contender.Plus, with two Super Bowl titles in the last 14 years, the Giants get the city’s only hall pass in this accounting.Alexis Lafreniere, center, is one of the many bright spots for a team that began a total rebuild a few years ago.Credit…Nick Wass/Associated PressHockey built itself back from the ground up.Esiason is also passionate hockey fan, and he pointed to a key moment in recent Rangers history that he sees as the catalyst for the entire region’s turnaround. In February 2018, the Rangers decided they were going to tear down the roster and rebuild, and sent a letter to season ticket holders advising them to say goodbye to their beloved older stars.“That has never been accepted in New York, for any team,” Esiason said. “It kind of set things in motion.”Now the Rangers are loaded with promising young players, like Alexis Lafreniere, last year’s No. 1 pick, Kaapo Kakko, the No. 2 pick in 2019, Adam Fox and goalie Igor Shesterkin, just to name a few.The Devils have also been plucking No. 1 picks, with Nico Hischier, who was just named captain last week, in 2017 and Jack Hughes in 2019, plus a deep pool of other intriguing prospects. Fans seem to appreciate where they are headed (and yes, they also get credit for capturing the region’s other title way back in 2003).Meanwhile Islanders fans are feeling good that Lou Lamoriello is the president of a team that made the conference finals last year.“Lou Lamoriello has basically resuscitated that moribund franchise,” said Esiason, whose son-in-law, Matt Martin, is a forward on the team, “and they have a new arena being built over in Elmont — who would have thought that would ever happen? Now, suddenly, they are one of the top teams in the N.H.L.”It’s all there. Maybe.Add it all up, from the Bronx to New Jersey — the Red Bulls are bound to win an M.L.S. Cup eventually, right? — and maybe the region really is headed for something better than four championships in the next 20 years.“New York is the greatest city in the world and it really needs some positive energy,” said Alex Rodriguez, the ESPN analyst who was part of the last Yankees championship in 2009. “Things are looking up. I think sports is ready to bring a lot of joy and hope for the folks of New York.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Liberty Enter Free Agency ‘Absolutely’ Ready for Big Changes

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Liberty Enter Free Agency ‘Absolutely’ Ready for Big ChangesSabrina Ionescu’s ankle injury derailed the Liberty’s high hopes for her rookie year, but the team is again aiming to contend next season. This is how it can do it.Liberty General Manager Jonathan Kolb said the team is in position to capitalize on free agents’ desire to come to New York and join the young roster.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressJan. 15, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETAt first glance, the Liberty aren’t anywhere near contending in the W.N.B.A.They finished 2-20 during the bubble season in Bradenton, Fla., last year, and the numbers don’t get any more encouraging below that top line. The Liberty’s offensive efficiency, 87.3 points per 100 possessions, ranked at the bottom of the league — by a lot. The gap between the Liberty and the Atlanta Dream, ranked 11th of the 12 teams, was larger than the gap between Atlanta and the No. 1 team, the Seattle Storm.In years past, the off-season wouldn’t offer much hope for a team in the Liberty’s position, with the league’s best players locked into long-term contracts and few free agents expected to make big moves. But that kind of off-season is no longer the standard under the collective bargaining agreement signed last January. Last year, many big names, including Skylar Diggins-Smith and Tina Charles, moved to new teams: Diggins-Smith to Phoenix from Dallas and Charles to Washington from the Liberty.The timetable for a W.N.B.A. team to turn itself into a winner is significantly shorter under the new rules, which include a much higher max salary and fewer core designations — the league’s equivalent of the N.F.L.’s franchise tag.So for the Liberty’s general manager, Jonathan Kolb, that means this off-season is more than just a chance to improve at the margins. A winter that can both define the Liberty’s rebuild and catapult the team into the playoffs is within reach.“Absolutely,” Kolb said of whether the Liberty could expect a drastic change in 2021. “For the history of the league, up through last season, teams really improved via the draft. And you go back and look: Trades really weren’t much of a thing.”Salary Cap: Stick with the rookies.But a byproduct of the new C.B.A. is pressure on general managers. The max salary jumped 80 percent to $215,000 from $119,500, while the salary cap increased around $300,000, or about 30 percent. Suddenly, a status quo that had roughly 40 percent of the league earning a max salary couldn’t hold. Teams with multiple stars who could command max salaries as they completed their old deals spent big last off-season, setting themselves up to have to make difficult decisions this year and beyond.The Liberty, however, are overstocked with cap-friendly rookie contracts. The team is building around Sabrina Ionescu, last year’s top overall pick. A team that played seven rookies last season has similarly cost-effective young pieces up and down the roster as well.“The rookies will mature as players, and they’re going to be more ready to step in and be more efficient,” Kolb said. “And in terms of the system, I mean, of course, we will change things up. We’ve been deep diving into doing an autopsy of our season, and looking at all of it, offensively and defensively. And so I think it will be a combination of personnel and improvements.”Guards: Count on Sabrina Ionescu and Kia Nurse.Sabrina Ionescu reacted to a play from the bench wearing a medical boot last season.Credit…Julio Aguilar/Getty ImagesOne place the Liberty appear set is at the point guard position. Though Ionescu played only three games before an ankle injury ended her season, she quickly displayed the evolved offensive repertoire that turned her Oregon team into a juggernaut, and her 33-point effort against the Dallas Wings served notice that her production translates to the next level. When Ionescu went down, Layshia Clarendon, a former All-Star, took over point guard duties and provided veteran leadership. With Clarendon running the offense, the Liberty proved they could play at the speed Coach Walt Hopkins preaches, finishing second in the league in pace.Ionescu’s return will give the Liberty even more options. Her pick-and-roll skills juiced the offense at Oregon, where she collaborated with rolling bigs like Ruthy Hebard (now with the Chicago Sky) and Satou Sabally (now with Dallas).It is easy to picture the team around Ionescu taking form. Kia Nurse, whose season-long shooting slump in 2020 came after her breakthrough All-Star 2019 season, seems likely to return to form. The perimeter looks that Hopkins’s system generates should be more fruitful with the sharpshooting of Rebecca Allen of Australia and Marine Johannes of France, both of whom opted out of the 2020 season over concerns about traveling to the United States during the pandemic.Bigs: Natasha Howard or Nneka Ogwumike?The team’s primary center from last year, Amanda Zahui B., is a free agent. Kiah Stokes, who recently signed an extension with the Liberty, is efficient around the rim but struggled from 3-point range for a team that gave everyone the green light to shoot from deep.The market ahead offers multiple ways to address this deficiency, while potentially pairing the younger Ionescu with a veteran big with championship experience. Natasha Howard, who was a bench player on Minnesota Lynx championship teams and then a vital part of the Seattle Storm title winners in 2018 and 2020, is a free agent. She shot 35 percent from 3-point range last year, while feasting on interior defenders worn down from trying to stop Breanna Stewart. But Howard was the fourth offensive option in Seattle, after Stewart, Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd, and she could decide to join the Liberty and become more of a focal point. She averaged only 7.5 shot attempts per game in 2020.Then there’s Nneka Ogwumike, the longtime Los Angeles Sparks forward. Like Howard, she is a free agent, and like Howard, she was relatively low on the pecking order in Sparks Coach Derek Fisher’s offense last year, averaging a career-low 9.3 shot attempts per game. She’s also the president of the W.N.B.A. players’ union and, with a move to New York, would find herself a subway ride away from its headquarters.While Seattle and Los Angeles have given Howard and Ogwumike core designations, that only guarantees compensation for the teams should the players force their way out. That was how Charles and Diggins-Smith landed with new teams last season. A lineup of Ionescu and either Howard or Ogwumike, with the other returning Liberty players like Nurse and Allen, would be the framework for a true contender.Draft: Keep the pick — or cash it in?And the Liberty have the luxury of free agency coming before a draft, expected to take place in April, in which they again hold the top overall pick. That pick is a primary asset the Liberty can use to put the finishing touches on an off-season with a big free-agent signing or in a trade to acquire a second star to play alongside Ionescu.Kolb did not mention any free-agent targets, but he did indicate that he hoped most of the Liberty’s team-building work would be concluded before the draft. Then again, if the right players cannot be recruited this winter, it just means running the same play again in 2022, when players like Stewart and Jonquel Jones of the Connecticut Sun could hit the free-agent market.“I think the most exciting thing is, we’re in position to do something,” Kolb said. “We’re positioned cap-wise, flexibility-wise, that if they’re interested in coming to New York, we’re in a position to capitalize on it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More