Laney, Betnijah (1993- )

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      Liberty Season Ends With Thrilling Loss in WNBA Playoffs

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      Sabrina Ionescu’s game-winner that opened the season had everyone thinking playoffs. Nothing from that point went as expected, including the team’s postseason run.The dramatic ending of the Liberty’s first trip to the playoffs since 2017 evoked memories of the start of this season.In the opener against Indiana, Sabrina Ionescu nailed a game-winning 3-pointer from the wing at Barclays Center with four-tenths of a second left and sent expectations soaring into the rafters. The Liberty started the season 5-1 and looked like a playoff team, easily surpassing their win total from last season’s 2-20 debacle.This time, with four-tenths of a second remaining in Thursday’s single-elimination first-round playoff game, the Liberty, trailing by a point, had a final chance to upset the Phoenix Mercury. As Sami Whitcomb inbounded the ball from the left side, players cut and sprinted in choreography. The first option — a lob pass toward the basket — wasn’t there, so Ionescu, coming off a screen, flared toward Whitcomb. Ionescu caught the pass from well beyond the 3-point line and launched a moonshot above the outstretched arms of Brittney Griner, the 6-foot-9 center.The last-gasp shot fell a foot short. The momentum of the fadeaway jumper, and contact with Griner, sent Ionescu skidding backward with an 83-82 loss. “It just didn’t go our way,” Liberty Coach Walt Hopkins said.With much to unpack after a thrilling game, the Liberty entered the off-season with plenty of promise, with the ball, and the franchise, in Ionescu’s hands. “I’m really excited for this next season, especially with this core group of players sitting next to me, to be able to grow from here,” Ionescu said, flanked by Betnijah Laney, the team’s leading scorer for the season, and Natasha Howard, its top rebounder, in the postgame news conference.Betnijah Laney was the Liberty’s leading scorer throughout an up-and-down season.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesAfter a transcendent career at Oregon that made her the easy choice as the No. 1 overall draft pick for the Liberty in 2020, Ionescu severely sprained an ankle in her third W.N.B.A. game and missed the rest of her rookie season. This season, she was hard to miss. Her game face stretched across the entrance of Barclays Center. Slam magazine called her the “The Next Queen of NY” on its April/May cover. She traded wisecracks in commercials with the 11-time N.B.A. All-Star Chris Paul, who was in the stands for the playoff game.Ionescu, 23, led the league in jersey sales this season, just ahead of Seattle’s Sue Bird, who has played in the W.N.B.A. almost as long as Ionescu has been alive. “She’s just done a really, truly magnificent job of balancing expectations that may have been unrealistic for a rookie,” Hopkins said.In her playoff debut Ionescu finished with 14 points, a game-high 11 assists, and 5 rebounds.It takes years, even for prodigies, to grow into their potential. Hopkins pointed to the Mercury’s Skylar Diggins-Smith, who at 31 made her first Olympic team this past summer, and scored a team-high 22 points against the Liberty. “She’s finally realizing her potential,” Hopkins said of Diggins-Smith.“For Sabrina to get to where she’s at — where she’s taking over a young team down the stretch, to execute, and to find success, and to hit big shots, and to shout back when somebody’s talking smack to her and not take it from anybody — it’s been really, really special,” Hopkins said. “I’ve never gotten to go through and watch somebody evolve as quickly as Sab has, and it’s been a privilege, honestly.”Even so, the team’s best player all season was Laney, who posted a game-high 25 points against the Mercury. Howard led the Liberty’s persistent defense with double and triple teams, limiting Griner’s ability to take over the game in the absence of Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, who did not play with an ankle injury. Ionescu, after starring as 2-guard in college, has learned to play the point, becoming more of a facilitator than a finisher.Liberty Coach Walt Hopkins criticized the league’s referees after the game. “The way they treated us was bad,” he said.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesIn just her sixth career pro game, Ionescu became the youngest player in league history to record a triple-double, with 26 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds in a win against Minnesota.However, ankle tendinitis hobbled Ionescu in June, and that, combined with the loss of Howard to a knee injury, stalled the team’s progress. The Olympic break helped Ionescu return to form, but the team’s play continued to plummet, and the Liberty won only two games in the season’s second half. The Liberty went into their final regular-season game on an eight-game losing streak but held off the Washington Mystics to keep their slight playoff hopes alive.With losses by the Mystics and Los Angeles Sparks on the final day of the regular season, the Liberty squeaked into the postseason. “Nobody thought we would be in this position,” Laney said after the Phoenix loss. “So the fact that we stuck together and made it here and fought hard, I’m really excited for what will come in the future.”Hopkins blamed the officiating after the loss, though he didn’t have an issue with the calls in the game’s waning moments.“There are a lot of things I want to say about the officiating in the W.N.B.A. and about the lack of respect this team’s gotten all season,” Hopkins said. “But I can’t say that, because referees are above reproach. They don’t have to go to a press conference after games. They don’t have to explain the mistakes they made, why they did what they do.“I don’t know where the accountability’s going to come from, but it needs to happen. It was a bad season. The way they treated us was bad.”Hopkins said the team was held to a different standard because it featured so many young players, including Ionescu and Michaela Onyenwere, who is the favorite for the Rookie of the Year Award. Against Phoenix, she played under nine minutes and didn’t score.Liberty fans in Arizona hoping for a last-second win.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesLaney is still building her résumé, fueled by disappointment and setbacks. Since the Chicago Sky drafted her in 2015, she was cut twice, by the Sky and the Fever, before she found a spot with Atlanta last year, when she won the league’s Most Improved Player Award. Then this season, she made her first All-Star team, with the Liberty, and led the team with 16.8 points per game.Against Phoenix, Laney made her team’s last shot, with 2.7 seconds left, to tie the game at 82. But the Mercury got the ball to Brianna Turner underneath the basket on the ensuing inbounds play, and Whitcomb fouled her. Turner’s first free throw rimmed out, but she calmly made the second, to give the Mercury the lead.After a timeout, the Liberty had the final chance to win. When Ionescu hit the floor after the missed shot, Howard ran over to help her up. Ionescu didn’t look angry or crestfallen when she walked off the court. Instead, she looked as if she was banking this experience for the future.She talked about the film work she had ahead of her in the off-season, the experience gained, the lessons learned. “We are going to start training camp at this level,” she said. “This is the foundation.” More

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      Star Rookie and Veterans Steer Liberty’s Rocky Season to the Playoffs

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      Michaela Onyenwere, the favorite for the Rookie of the Year Award, and the veteran Betnijah Laney proved critical in what looked to be a down year.Michaela Onyenwere’s W.N.B.A. career began with a celebration that spread across social media timelines and mentions. When the Liberty drafted her No. 6 overall in April, a video stream of her dancing grandmother took center stage. Theresa Duru wore traditional Nigerian apparel, including a head tie, called a gele, that billowed toward the ceiling like a cumulus cloud as she busted moves and turned heads. Duru became a meme and a tagline: “We’re all Grandma.”For Onyenwere, the feel-good mood continued throughout the season. The 6-foot forward from U.C.L.A. started all but three games, averaged 8.6 points and 2.9 rebounds per game and became the lopsided favorite to win the Rookie of the Year Award.On Monday, Onyenwere was named rookie of the month for the fourth consecutive time, sweeping the award for the season. “Again,” her teammate Betnijah Laney said. “All year. Reigning rookie of the month. We know what that means.”Onyenwere said she knew who would be celebrating the most if she were to win the rookie award for the overall season. “I just can already imagine the call that I’m going to get from my grandma,” Onyenwere said. “Oh, my gosh. She’s going to be super, super, super excited. As soon as it happens, she’s going to be screaming on the phone.”The season has been an emotional ride for the 12-20 Liberty, full of setbacks and surprises. They went into their final regular-season game on an eight-game losing streak last week but held off the Washington Mystics to keep their slight playoff hopes alive.Though the Liberty won only two games after the Olympic break, a trip to the postseason for the first time since 2017 remained possible. To clinch the last playoff spot, the team needed the Mystics and the Los Angeles Sparks to lose on Sunday. After both teams obliged, Onyenwere, who watched the games with teammates, posted a happy dance on Instagram Live.Walt Hopkins, the team’s second-year head coach, was watching on Sunday, too. Hopkins, 36, holds master’s degrees from Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. His studies focused on applying findings from social, developmental and educational psychology to coaching settings.He often seems both earnest and erudite, a hoop head on the verge of delivering an academic dissertation at any moment.During a news conference on Monday, a reporter asked Hopkins what his Sunday was like, given that the coach likes to focus on only what he can control.“I just got drunk,” Hopkins deadpanned. “I was just drunk the whole day.” Then he smiled and said he had watched the games and prepared for the Phoenix Mercury, who will play the Liberty in a single-elimination game on Thursday. Boring. But prudent.There were many unknowns entering this season. With one of the youngest teams in the league, the Liberty fortified their roster with veterans, including forward Natasha Howard, a three-time W.N.B.A. champion and the 2019 defensive player of the year; Laney, who was named the most improved player last season; and Sami Whitcomb, who won two championships with the Seattle Storm.The second-year forward Jocelyn Willoughby, the Liberty’s top performer in training camp, tore an Achilles’ tendon during a preseason scrimmage, ending her season and opening up a spot for Onyenwere.“Opportunity is really the thing that can separate a lot of very talented rookies for that rookie of the year race,” Hopkins said. In an unexceptional year for W.N.B.A. rookies — many of the top picks saw limited playing time — Onyenwere rose to the top of the class.Onyenwere led all rookies with 8.6 points per game. She started all but three games for the Liberty.Noah K. Murray/Associated Press“Michaela came into camp probably the most consistent shooter on the team in preseason. She was knocking down every shot,” Hopkins said. “Her athleticism, her explosion, her defensive versatility, and then her personality is absolutely wonderful, so she really separated herself in camp.”In the season opener, Onyenwere scored 18 points against Indiana, in a victory punctuated by Sabrina Ionescu’s game-winning 3-pointer with less than a second remaining. Onyenwere closed out the first month of her pro career with a season-high 29 points against Atlanta.“Coming in, I didn’t expect any of this,” Onyenwere said. “I didn’t put too much pressure on myself, because I know that if I do that, I won’t play as freely as I want to.” She continued to play with joy and purpose, though an elbow injury on her shooting arm affected her 3-point accuracy.“Mic rises to occasions in part because the pressure doesn’t affect her like it affects other people,” Hopkins said, using a nickname for Onyenwere. “I don’t think she internalizes it. I don’t think it becomes this emotional burden to her. I think it’s just like, ‘OK, cool, I got you,’ and I admire that. That’s something that’s not normal. It’s a rare characteristic.”After starting the season 5-1, the Liberty were the toast of the league, easily surpassing their win total from last season’s 2-20 debacle. The team’s first season at Barclays Center held promise mostly because of the return of Ionescu, the 2020 No. 1 overall pick from Oregon who severely sprained an ankle in her third W.N.B.A. game and missed the rest of her rookie season.Ionescu led the team in hype — “The Next Queen of NY” read the April/May cover of Slam magazine — and gradually adjusted to the challenges ahead of her, including playing point guard after starring as a 2-guard in college.“It’s like Sabs played two games and she’s never played in New York to be the queen of New York,” Hopkins said. “She’s just done a truly magnificent job of balancing expectations that may have been unrealistic for a rookie.”Sabrina Ionescu dealt with an ankle injury but was the Liberty’s second-leading scorer in her sophomore season.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesInjuries slowed the team’s early progress. Howard sprained her knee at the end of May and didn’t return to the lineup until mid-August. Ankle tendinitis hobbled Ionescu in June, and the winning pace tapered off the rest of the season.Laney proved to be the Liberty’s most consistent performer, completing a remarkable journey from castoff to All-Star. More journeyman than franchise player since the Chicago Sky drafted her in 2015, she was cut by Indiana after the 2019 season, found a spot with Atlanta last year, when she won the league’s Most Improved Player Award, then made her first All-Star team with the Liberty and led the team with 16.8 points per game this season.So which Liberty team will emerge in the playoffs? The one that was blown off the court by Connecticut, 98-69, in the penultimate game of the regular season? “An anomaly,” Hopkins called it. Or the sharpshooting, defensive-minded, cohesive bunch that beat Washington, 91-80, on Friday? “That is the team we are right now,” Hopkins said.Howard was a critical factor in the Washington win, scoring 24 points, with Ionescu adding 22, to keep the Liberty’s playoff hopes alive. Both will need to perform at that level against Phoenix.“I think we’re starting to come together,” Ionescu said after beating the Mystics. “Whatever happens the rest of the season, I don’t think it really matters. At the end of the day, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, but it’s only the beginning. I’m really excited to see what the future holds for this team.” More

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      5 W.N.B.A. All-Stars to Know

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      5 W.N.B.A. All-Stars to Know Alanis ThamesWatching hoops in Florida 🏀Abbie Parr/Getty ImagesAhead of the Olympics, the W.N.B.A.’s best players will face off in the All-Star Game in Las Vegas on Wednesday.Here are five players who could steal the show → More

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      Betnijah Laney Is the Scoring Threat the Liberty Needed

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      Laney has scored at least 20 points in the first six games of the season, the first Liberty player ever to do so. She was the team’s leading scorer in four of its five victories.Athletes generally improve on fairly predictable trajectories. A role player at age 24 may have some upside, but probably isn’t going to suddenly become a superstar at 26.So what happened with Betnijah Laney of the Liberty?After a good college career at Rutgers, Laney, a 6-foot guard, was taken in the second round of the 2015 W.N.B.A. draft by the Chicago Sky and soon settled into a role as a defensive specialist off the bench. Her second season was derailed by an anterior cruciate ligament injury. She had a season on the bench for the Connecticut Sun and then a season as a 5-points-a-game starter for the Indiana Fever.She seemed to have established herself as a useful journeywoman, but hardly a franchise player.There were hints that the offensive talent was there. In a spell with the Perth Lynx in Australia, she averaged 15.2 points a game. With Elitzur Holon in Israel, she averaged 19.4 points a game. But it was easy to write off the numbers given the lower level of talent in those leagues.Then she arrived in Atlanta.Certainly, no one was expecting an offensive difference maker. “She will give us size and versatility at the defensive end of the floor,” Nicki Collen, the coach at the time, told the team website. “She will also help create pace and extra possessions on offense, as she is relentless on the glass.”The offensive explosion she brought to the Dream in 2020 was flabbergasting. She began to shoot more than twice as often as she had, which would be a recipe for disaster for most players. But instead, she drastically improved. While not letting up defensively, she showed a newfound ability to create her own shot, and sink it. Her shooting percentages increased, to .507 from .388 on 2-pointers, to .405 from .303 on 3-pointers and to .827 from .581 on free throws.“I was just kind of talking to her after workouts and I said: ‘You know the scouting report on you is that you can’t shoot, right? You do know that’s in everyone’s scout?’” Collen told The Athletic.Some of the upgrade simply came from opportunity as the Dream unleashed the suddenly productive Laney. But opportunity alone doesn’t bring such shooting improvement or automatically lead to winning the league’s Most Improved Player Award, which she did that season.Laney was a free agent at the conclusion of 2020, and the Liberty won the race to sign her. There was a danger, of course, that her season with Atlanta would prove to be a fluke and that the Liberty would make the mistake of buying at the top of the market.Instead, Laney, 27, seems to have become even better.Through six games, her 2- and 3-point-shooting percentages have risen again, even as she is shooting still more often. Her usage percentage — the percent of plays in which she is the main offensive actor, which in her previous incarnation was around 15 — rose to 23.5 in Atlanta and 28.3 this year. That makes her an even bigger part of the Liberty offense than the much-heralded rookie Sabrina Ionescu.Laney has scored 20 or more points in her team’s first six games, the first Liberty player to achieve that. (The W.N.B.A. record for such a start to a season is nine games, held by Cynthia Cooper of the 1999 Houston Comets.) Defensively, she is a key reason the Liberty have cut their opponents’ points per 100 possessions to 99.2, from 105.9 last season.Combine that stellar play with the return of Ionescu, who missed almost all of her rookie season with an injury, and the Liberty are tied with the Connecticut Sun at a league-best 5-1, on their way to their best season in at least four years. No matter what happens, they have already surpassed last year’s horrible 2-20 record, the second-worst season in league history.Laney almost always deflects talk about her stunning improvement, turning the focus to her teammates and coaches. “It’s always the win first for me,” she said after a 26-point effort in the Liberty’s 88-81 win over the Dallas Wings in Brooklyn on Monday. “Obviously, I’m a part of the scoring threat, but I don’t ever go out and say, OK, I need to get this amount of points.”Be that as it may, there is every reason to think the points, and the Liberty wins, will keep coming, through the regular season and beyond. More

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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