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    Joan Jett Loves the New York Liberty. The Feeling Is Mutual.

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    As an early fan of the W.N.B.A. team, the musician saw the squad lose four championship series. This week, she returned courtside to cheer another attempt.Joan Jett’s unmistakable voice was carrying, and she was pretty sure it was working some magic.The New York Liberty had taken a slim lead against the Las Vegas Aces in the third quarter of Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals on Sunday, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer was doing her part, bellowing along with the crowd’s “De-fense” chant from her courtside perch at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. When the Aces started to go cold, Jett took it as a sign.“I’m hoping they recognize my voice and I’m messing up their shot,” the husky-throated musician said, using an expletive. “It’s all mental, you know what I’m saying?”It was a must-win contest for the Liberty, who were down 2-0 in the best-of-five series. As Jett kept up her boisterous chant, the Aces missed six consecutive shots. The Liberty went on an 8-0 run, and the diminutive singer and guitarist jumped up to high-five the 6-foot-3 former Liberty center Sue Wicks, a friend.Some 10 years had passed since Jett last attended a W.N.B.A. game (her summer touring schedule got in the way), but she fell quickly back into the playoff delirium she had enjoyed as a courtside fixture in the late 1990s and early ’00s, when the team made the final round of the playoffs four times but failed to win a title.The rock star said she first fell for the game in 1996 when the N.C.A.A. asked her permission to use Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ cover of “Love Is All Around” to promote the women’s basketball tournament. The following year, the W.N.B.A. began its first season and Jett bought Liberty season tickets, often showing up to big games with a red cloth voodoo doll she used to taunt opposing players.“She’d hold it up and stab that dang thing!” Teresa Weatherspoon, the former Liberty guard, said during halftime. “When you talk about the Liberty, you have to mention Joan’s name. Any battle we had on the floor, Joan was in it with us.”Jett grew up a self-described tomboy in Rockville, Md., and became a fan of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles at age 11, after her father took her to see the pitcher Jim Palmer throw a no-hitter. Her intersection with sports continues today: She still follows the Orioles faithfully, and is known to set up livestreams on the drum riser during shows so she can follow along. The theme song for “Sunday Night Football,” is an adapted version of the Blackhearts hit “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” performed by Carrie Underwood.During her early days of W.N.B.A. fandom, Jett opted to sit directly behind the bench instead of courtside with the other celebrities. (“It just feels more inside basketball to me,” Jett said. “You can hear the coaches talking.”) The Liberty would slap her hand on their way onto the floor. Jett occasionally came to practices, and once even flew to Houston with the team for a finals game.Jett developed particularly close friendships with Weatherspoon and Wicks, who remembers being so star-struck the first time she saw Jett at Madison Square Garden, where the Liberty initially played, that she almost knocked over Rebecca Lobo, the team’s center. Wicks had a copy of “The Hit List,” Jett’s 1990 album, while playing overseas in Europe, and said it had been a “great friend” to her during lonely stretches abroad. “For me, she’s a goddess,” Wicks said.In 1999, Ray Castoldi, the Garden’s organist, asked Jett and the Blackhearts to record “Unfinished Business,” a song he had written for the Liberty after their crushing finals loss that year. Jett not only cut the track the following season, but filmed a video with the team and performed the song at halftime during a game.“It’s hard to explain the energy,” Jett said of those early years. “I was on the outside looking in, but they made me feel like I was on the inside. It was a fun, really inclusive time.”Jett feels a natural kinship with athletes, who, like longtime touring bands, travel with a tight-knit team and are expected to perform on command. And like the athletes in the W.N.B.A., who have carved out a professional place for themselves while expanding the public’s idea of what women are capable of doing, Jett broke down boundaries in music: battling to prove to record labels and crowds that she deserved to be a frontwoman despite her prodigious talent. “We’re people that could relate to what each other was doing,” she said.Crystal Robinson, a former Liberty forward with whom Jett remains close, said the recognition was mutual: “For us, it was just the fact that she supported us,” she said. “She was fighting that female battle before we started. We had this camaraderie.”Jett’s return to the Liberty on Sunday was an overdue homecoming. Before the game, she nursed a beer as she held court with Wicks and Robinson at a table in the Barclays’ V.I.P. lounge. The recently retired W.N.B.A. star Sue Bird came by to pay her respects, as did the actors Jason Sudeikis and Michael Shannon, who portrayed Kim Fowley, the manager of Jett’s band, the Runaways, in a 2010 film.As the restaurant emptied before game time, Jett got restless. “I feel like we’re missing stuff!” she said giddily, before heading toward the court to find her seat. Just before tipoff, Becky Hammon, the Aces head coach who had been a Liberty guard in her playing days, spotted Jett taking a photo of her from across the court and struck a quick pose.Once the game started, Jett was up out of her seat to cheer on nearly every Liberty point. She gleefully taunted Hammon after a Jonquel Jones bucket (“Three-pointer, Becky!”), and debated foul calls with Wicks and Robinson. When Jones blocked a shot from the Aces star A’ja Wilson in the third quarter, Jett removed her black jean jacket to cheers from the crowd. “It’s hot in here!” she shouted back.After the Aces went cold in the third quarter, the Liberty stretched their lead. “I feel good,” Jett said. “But they’ve broken my heart before.”She appeared on the Jumbotron soon after, gamely swinging a Liberty towel overhead as “I Love Rock ’n Roll” blared on the public address system. Then, she fired T-shirts into the crowd with an air cannon, with the crowd roaring for her.“I felt the love,” Jett said. But she was mainly focused on her potential as a tactical influence: “It reminds Las Vegas that I’m here, and that can make them nervous.”She needn’t have worried. The Liberty found their rhythm in the second half and defeated the Aces, 87-73, extending the series to a Game 4, which will be played in Brooklyn on Wednesday. Should the team force a Game 5, it will play for the franchise’s elusive, first-ever title.“You’ve got to be back Wednesday!” a fan told Jett as the clock wound down. “You’re clearly the good luck charm.”But Jett is prepared for any outcome. “That’s the nature of being a sports fan,” she said. “To be there through the tough times and the good times.” More

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      How Ellie the Elephant, NY Liberty’s Twerking Mascot, Electrifies Barclays Center

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      Ellie the Elephant, the mascot for the New York Liberty, has danced her way into the hearts of fans as the team has played its way into the W.N.B.A. finals.Every mascot has its thing. Some dunk. Others flip. As for Ellie the Elephant, the mascot for the New York Liberty women’s basketball team? She twerks.Amelia Bane, 33, said she was blown away the first time she saw Ellie at a Liberty game in 2021. Ms. Bane, a video editor and a host of “Let the Girls Play!,” a comedic W.N.B.A. podcast, said she recorded a video of the elephant, who has often performed alongside the Liberty’s dance troupe, the Torch Patrol, and sent it to a friend.“You’re not going to believe this elephant that’s just absolutely throwing ass,” Ms. Bane recalled telling her friend. (While recounting the story, she excused herself for her colorful language.)“I don’t ever want to go to the bathroom during a game,” said Ms. Bane, who lives in Brooklyn and is planning to dress her infant as the mascot for Halloween. “Because even if the game isn’t on, Ellie is on.”The author Fran Lebowitz said she was surprised to see the mascot when she and a friend went to see the Liberty — who are playing the Las Vegas Aces in Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals on Sunday — at Barclays Center in Brooklyn this summer.“I fail to understand what the elephant has to do with Brooklyn,” Ms. Lebowitz said. “Because to me, it’s the Republicans that are symbolized by an elephant.”Of Ellie’s dance skills, she added: “She did seem to be, I guess, very good for an elephant.”Ellie dancing with the Timeless Torches, a Liberty dance troupe whose members are over 40-years-old.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Ellie EffectEllie has been a fixture at Liberty home games since 2021, a year after the team relocated to Barclays Center from its previous home, the Westchester County Center in White Plains, N.Y., a smaller arena where they had been playing since 2018. Before that the Liberty, who have been a part of the W.N.B.A. since the league debuted in 1997, played home games at Madison Square Garden.But this year, after a series of trades and draft picks resulted in the Liberty becoming a so-called superteam, Ellie’s fame has grown as the team has played its way into the W.N.B.A.’s championship round for the first time since 2002.Jillian Steinhauer, 38, a journalist in Brooklyn, compared Ellie to members of the Fly Girls, the in-house dance troupe from “In Living Color,” a sitcom from the early 1990s.“She’s just so good,” she said, “and she’s wearing a freaking elephant costume.”During a halftime performance on the opening night of the Liberty’s 2023 season in May, Ellie danced to a medley of hits by the rapper Lil’ Kim, who grew up in Brooklyn. She was wearing a black caped leotard, black thigh-high boots, sparkly sunglasses and a luminous, golden-brown wig tucked behind her giant ears.At a performance the year before, Ellie channeled Mary J. Blige while grooving to a supercut of Ms. Blige’s most popular songs in a brown wig with crimped, 48-inch-long locks that flew through the air whenever Ellie snapped and shook her head.Criscia Long, the senior director of entertainment for the Liberty and the Brooklyn Nets, said those wigs were such a hit that they inspired a new hairstyle that Ellie debuted this season: a 72-inch-long braid that falls to her feet.Ms. Long added that, each season, Ellie has received a new pair of customized Nike sneakers for her Barclays Center performances.This season Ellie debuted a new hairstyle: a 72-inch-long braid that falls to her feet.The New York Liberty“We had to step it up with Ellie’s foot game,” she said.Ellie has shown off her footwear while performing her signature dance move: the Ellie stomp.During the fourth quarter at home games, the arena’s lights go dark and a spotlight appears on a huddle of other dancers. “Headsprung” by LL Cool J starts booming through the arena’s speakers, and then Ellie leaps over the dancers and lands on one foot with a thunderous stomp. The Jumbotron camera somersaults and shakes as the dancers fall to the ground, seemingly knocked unconscious by the aftershock.“The Ellie stomp totally brings the crowd together,” said Rachel Kaly, a 28-year-old comedian in Brooklyn.She added that Ellie’s braid, custom sneakers and costumes — which have included a pink bikini worn at a Barbie-themed game — have made the elephant “kind of a fashion icon.”Keia Clarke, chief executive of the Liberty, said that the W.N.B.A. has traditionally targeted families as the league’s primary audience. Ellie, she added, “opened up a different lane that I think we weren’t completely expecting from a fandom standpoint.”The Evolution of EllieMs. Clarke said that choosing an elephant to replace the Liberty’s former mascot — a scruffy blond dog named Maddy, after Madison Square Garden — had nothing to do with the Republican Party.Ellie, she said, is a homage to the elephants that the circus founder P.T. Barnum paraded across the Brooklyn Bridge, in 1884, to demonstrate its stability after its completion a year earlier. Her name is a nod to Ellis Island.An elephant, an animal that can symbolize power and resilience, also seemed fitting because the Liberty arrived in Brooklyn after its two worst seasons on record, Ms. Clarke said. (The team is owned by Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai, a married couple who also own the Brooklyn Nets; Mr. Tsai is a founder and the chairman of the Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba.)“For Brooklyn,” Ms. Clarke added, “We knew Ellie needed to be able to dance.”During a Liberty game in September, Ellie pumped up the crowd by doing a split.Mike Lawrence/NBAE via Getty ImagesFans said Ellie’s personality is as memorable as her dancing.Calla Kessler for The New York Times“When we thought about Brooklyn and its music and its culture, dancing absolutely had to be a part of it,” she said.Ellie was chosen after auditions were conducted with the help of a mascot consultant. Ever since, Ms. Clarke said, she has continued to surprise audiences with her ability. Ellie is “an extremely talented dancer in many, many different genres,” she said.Ms. Long, who was a captain of the New York Knicks’ dance troupe before she started working with the Liberty and the Nets, said she has been surprised by Ellie’s moves at “every single game.”“We just keep trying and throwing more things” at her, she added. (Ellie is paid for performing with the Liberty.)Watching Ellie dance is only part of her appeal, according to fans, lots of whom said they have also been charmed by her personality. In interviews for this article, Ellie was described as “welcoming,” “hilarious,” “joyful,” “fierce,” “fly,” “mischievous” and “the life of the party.”Mike Zakarian, 38, who hosts Team Hold!, a comedic sports-video series on YouTube, said that the way Ellie walks is almost more eye-catching than her dancing. “She stomps around like something is about to happen,” he said. “It draws your attention.”Ellie wore a rainbow tutu and matching hair bows while performing at a game in June.Mitchell Leff/Getty ImagesAll the attention he has paid to Ellie, though, has not helped Mr. Zakarian identify the person inside the mascot’s costume. And he is not alone.“I’ve had so many conversations like, ‘Is Ellie a man? Is Ellie a woman? Is Ellie in their 30s or in their 20s?’” said Mr. Zakarian, who lives in Queens. “‘Is there is a world in which Ellie was a running back in college? Or maybe a Division 1 cheerleader?”He has had conversations with multiple people in his YouTube videos about Ellie’s identity, he said, and whether there is “a crew of Ellies” that rotate performing at games.“I need a podcast,” he said. “A ‘Serial’-esque breakdown of who is Ellie?”Who Is Ellie?In an interview on Monday afternoon at Barclays Center, Ellie, who was accompanied by Ms. Long, did not speak. (Ms. Long had previously declined to comment on Ellie’s identity.)But Ellie, who was wearing a white Liberty jersey and a pair of white-and-turquoise sneakers, one of which had “equality” painted across its toe box, did answer some questions by gesturing.Is she the best dancer in the W.N.B.A.? She shrugged bashfully.Does she feel the love from the crowd when she comes out? She vigorously nodded yes.Is the Liberty going to win the championship? Another vigorous nod. (At the time of publication, the team was down 0-2 in the best-of-five finals.)Is she single? Ellie threw her head back as if she was laughing, then opened her arms wide.Ms. Long offered to interpret her answer. “She’s for the fans,” she said.During the interview, Ms. Long also addressed one rumor about the mascot.“There’s only one Ellie,” she said in response to speculation that multiple people might rotate wearing the elephant costume. “There will only ever be one Ellie.” More

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      The Liberty’s Game 1 WNBA Playoff Win Against the Mystics, in Photos

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      Liberty fans have waited 27 seasons for a W.N.B.A. title, and on Friday night, it showed. The atmosphere at Barclays Center was electric for New York’s opening postseason game against the Washington Mystics.Fans waved white playoff towels, booed every call that didn’t go their way and cheered for each celebrity featured on the scoreboard, including Malala Yousafzai, a Nobel Peace Prize winner; the tennis great Billie Jean King; and Teresa Weatherspoon, the former Liberty star. Members of the team’s N.B.A. counterparts, the Brooklyn Nets, were also in attendance.Those fans were rewarded with a Liberty win, 90-75, behind 29 points from Sabrina Ionescu and 20 from Jonquel Jones. The game started as a tense back-and-forth affair, but the Liberty took a narrow lead into halftime, and they never relinquished it. Ionescu set a postseason franchise record with seven 3-pointers in the game.After the Liberty wrapped up the regular season with a 32-8 record, expectations were high that they could take the championship. They are seeded second in the playoffs, with the Las Vegas Aces seeded first.A win on Tuesday in Brooklyn, in Game 2 of this best-of-three series against the Mystics, would send the Liberty to the semifinals — and get them one step closer to that elusive title.Fans lined up at Barclays Center.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA D.J. worked the crowd outside before the game.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesThe Liberty’s Betnijah Laney kept the team afloat in the first half.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesJonquel Jones shooting against the Mystics defense.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Liberty gave the fans more to celebrate as they pulled away in the second half.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Timeless Torches dance group performed between quarters.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesMonique Jaques for The New York TimesMalala Yousafzai and Billie Jean King were on hand for the game.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York Times More

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      WNBA Playoff Preview: The Aces and Liberty Are On a Collision Course

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      The Aces and the Liberty towered above the competition this season. Will they meet in the finals?Two superteams, the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty, dominated the W.N.B.A. season, as expected. They were so good that only two others teams in the 12-team league even managed a winning record.A final between them has the potential to be a classic. But first, they will have to make it through the six other teams in the W.N.B.A. playoffs.When do the playoffs start?The first game of the best-of-three quarterfinals, Minnesota at Connecticut, is on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern, with Chicago at Las Vegas following at 10 p.m. The Washington-New York and Atlanta-Dallas series will start on Friday.The best-of-five semifinals are scheduled from Sept. 24 to Oct. 3, and the finals will start Oct. 8 and run through Oct. 20, if all five games are necessary.What do the first-round matchups look like?The big two teams, the Aces (34-6 in the regular season) and the Liberty (32-8), are prohibitive favorites over the Chicago Sky and the Washington Mystics, though the Mystics have their former M.V.P., Elena Delle Donne, back from injury, and the Sky have a history of deep playoff runs after subpar regular seasons.The league’s third-best team has clearly been the Connecticut Sun (27-13), which would be expected to beat the Minnesota Lynx. In the final series, the Dallas Wings were three games better than the Atlanta Dream in the regular season and have home-court advantage, so should be the favorite.Who’s going to win it all?The Aces or the Liberty, the Liberty or the Aces? That’s been the question all season.The Aces are the reigning champions, and they have been even better this year. The Liberty managed to land Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot in the off-season to soar from an average team to greatness.The teams split their four regular-season league meetings, but the Liberty won a fifth game, the final of the new Commissioner’s Cup. The betting odds favor the Aces, but, in truth, it looks too close to call.Could the Sun spoil the party? A 1-6 record against the top two teams doesn’t bode well. The other five teams in the playoffs would need a run of form not seen all season to win the title.How can I watch the games?ABC and the ESPN channels will be telecasting the games.What’s this I hear about flights?Unlike in the N.B.A., travel in the W.N.B.A. is mostly commercial, which has been a point of contention between the players and the league. This year, the league announced that, for the playoffs at least, teams would fly charter.But there are limits, sources have reported: Charter flights would be allowed only once between series, allowing a team, for example, to fly home from a series by charter but not onward to the next series.Who are the players to watch?Just about every Ace who steps on the court. The star forward and reigning M.V.P. A’ja Wilson (22.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks a game, and a record-tying 53-point game) is complemented by the sharpshooting guard trio of Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray (seven assists per game).A longer W.N.B.A. season this year allowed Stewart to break the league record for points scored, though Jewell Loyd of Seattle broke her record a few days later. In addition to Jones and Vandersloot, the Liberty have Sabrina Ionescu, the top 3-point shooter in the league.The Sun are led by the versatile forward Alyssa Thomas, who led the league in rebounds, and nearly in assists. And she recorded six triple-doubles this season, a league record.What teams and players are missing?Candace Parker joined the Aces as a splashy off-season signing, but the two-time M.V.P. has been sidelined indefinitely with a fractured foot. She played the first half of the season but has been out since early July.It would have been fun to see the No. 1 draft pick and probable rookie of the year Aliyah Boston in action, but her Indiana Fever did not make the playoffs.After 10 straight seasons in the playoffs, the Phoenix Mercury finished last and did not qualify. That means no playoffs for Brittney Griner, who rejoined the league after spending 10 months in Russian prison on drug charges. Remarkably, she returned to make the All-Star team and average 17.5 points a game, just about her career average. More

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      Breanna Stewart Sets W.N.B.A. Points Record

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      She has scored more points this season than anyone else in W.N.B.A. history, but had more games to do it.Breanna Stewart of the Liberty has now scored more points than any other player in a single season in W.N.B.A. history. But is she really the league’s best scorer ever? It depends on how you look at it.Stewart scored 40 points in a 94-93 victory at the Dallas Wings on Tuesday night. That took her to 885 points for a season, more than any other W.N.B.A. player in history.But she has benefited from the new 40-game schedule, which was introduced this season. For most of its history, the league played 34 games.Diana Taurasi, whose record Stewart broke, scored 860 points in 2006, the third season in her long career with the Phoenix Mercury. But she did it in 34 games, for a scoring average of 25.3 points per game. Stewart took 38 games to reach her total, giving her a 23.3-per-game average.For Stewart to match Taurasi’s scoring average record, assuming she plays both of the remaining games on the Liberty’s schedule, she would need to average more than 60 points a game, a feat beyond even her skills, one would think.“I have this back-and-forth feeling with the scoring record, because any time I’m in the same limelight as D, it’s amazing, just because of what she’s done in her career and what she continues to do,” Stewart said after the game.“But obviously, it’s more games. More games is more points. As we have 40-game seasons, and we continue to build off that, there’s going to be a lot of records that are broken.”Stewart is not the only one racking up the points this season. Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm has 852 with three games to play. A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has 846 with two games to play. Both should also sail past Taurasi’s mark, and there is no guarantee Stewart will even hold the record by season’s end.Longer season or not, it has been a boom year for individual scoring in the W.N.B.A. Stewart’s game on Tuesday was the 13th time this season a player had scored 40 or more points; last season, nobody did it. Wilson had a 53-point game last month, tying the league’s single-game scoring record.Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun has also been taking advantage of the longer schedule. On Tuesday night, she broke the single-season assist record with 304, topping Courtney Vandersloot’s 300 for the Chicago Sky in 2019. Thomas also has 375 rebounds, fourth on the single-season list with two games to play.It’s all a bit reminiscent of Roger Maris’s home run chase in 1961. As Maris approached Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season, Ford Frick, who was the baseball commissioner, suggested Maris’s record could receive a “distinctive mark” in the record book, unless Maris reached 60 in 154 games, the traditional length of a season. The American League had lengthened its season to 162 games in 1961.Maris had 59 homers at the 154-game mark, and hit his 61st, breaking Ruth’s record, in the Yankees’ final regular-season game. As a result, many fans thought of Maris’s record as having an asterisk, although one was never actually applied officially.Stewart’s record is the latest accomplishment in a glittering basketball career. A 6-foot-4 forward, she won four national championships in four years at UConn and was the N.C.A.A. tournament’s most outstanding player each year. She had two titles in her six seasons with Seattle, won the league M.V.P. in 2018, and may do so again this season after signing with the Liberty as a free agent. She also has two Olympic gold medals.Stewart benefited from the longer schedule. But points do not score themselves. And for now, she has more of them in a W.N.B.A. season than anyone else. More

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      Once Rare, 40-Point Games Are Surging in the W.N.B.A.

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      Breanna Stewart of the Liberty scored 42 on Sunday for her third 40-point game of the season, and the 10th in the league this year.The 40-point game had disappeared from the W.N.B.A. over the past several years. This season, it has made a comeback.Ten times this year a player has scored at least 40 points in a game, by far the most in a single season in the league’s 27-year history. Before this year, there had been no such regular-season showings since 2018, when the star center Liz Cambage had two. And with at least nine games left for every team, as the W.N.B.A. stages its longest regular season ever, there is still time for more scoring outbursts.“You see a lot of 40-point games this year, and I think that we’re just continuing to get eyes on women’s basketball,” Breanna Stewart, the star Liberty forward, said Sunday in a television interview after notching the league’s most recent 40-point game in a 100-89 victory over the Indiana Fever.Stewart scored 30 of her 42 points in the first half on the way to her third 40-point game in 2023, becoming the first player in W.N.B.A. history with three in a regular season. (In 2015, Elena Delle Donne recorded two 40-point games in the regular season and one in the postseason for the Chicago Sky.)True to her versatile style of play, Stewart scored on Sunday in myriad ways: backing down the smaller Kristy Wallace and finishing with a left-handed layup; making a turnaround fadeaway over Lexie Hull from the baseline; knocking down a long 3-pointer after trailing the play.Though she had not scored 40 points in a regular-season game until this year, Stewart had shown she was capable. She had 42 points, tying a postseason record, in her final game with the Seattle Storm, and that kind of output has continued in her first season with New York.In May, in her first home game with the Liberty, she scored a career-high 45 points against the Fever, who are very likely grateful that New York is no longer on their regular-season schedule. She also dropped 43 points in a win over the Phoenix Mercury in July.Stewart’s outing Sunday came only two days after Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson had her first career 40-point game, shooting 17 of 25 in a blowout win over Washington. Wilson and Stewart, past Most Valuable Player Award winners, are both in the top five in points and rebounds per game this year and are among the leading contenders for another M.V.P.“I don’t know, there’s something in the water,” Stewart said when asked if there was a “40-point rivalry” developing.A’ja Wilson and Las Vegas have a three-game lead on Stewart’s Liberty for the W.N.B.A.’s best record. John Locher/Associated PressTheir teams are atop the league standings, too. The reigning champion Aces (27-3) are within striking distance of the 1998 Houston Comets’ record for best single-season winning percentage, and the Liberty (24-6) are off to their best start in franchise history as they look to win their first title. The teams have split their two games, including a romp by the Liberty earlier this month, but they play three more times in August, including on Tuesday and Thursday.The Liberty made a splash by signing top players this off-season, but the Aces have elite talent, too, and one of those players, the two-time All-Star Kelsey Plum, has also recorded a 40-point game this season. While the sharpshooting Plum made six 3-pointers as part of her performance against the Minnesota Lynx in July, the 6-foot-4 Wilson racked up her points by overpowering defenders, maneuvering in the post and swishing midrange jumpers.Like Wilson, Plum had never scored 40 points in a regular-season game until 2023. Neither had Rhyne Howard of Atlanta, Jewell Loyd of Seattle, Arike Ogunbowale of Dallas or DeWanna Bonner of Connecticut.But one player who did it this year had.On Aug. 3 against the Atlanta Dream, Phoenix guard Diana Taurasi needed 18 points to become the first player in W.N.B.A. history to score 10,000 in a career. She reached the milestone with a deep 3-pointer over Howard in the third quarter, and she finished with 42 points — her first 40-point game since 2010 and the fourth of her career.“Tomorrow I’ll feel like I’m 50,” the 41-year-old Taurasi said in a postgame news conference.She added later: “I came here a little bit nervous. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I just wanted to get it over with for a sense of relief, but at the same time I was just focused on trying to win a game.”Though the 40-point game has had a renaissance in the W.N.B.A., much like the triple-double did last season, the 50-point game remains exceedingly rare. There have been only two: Cambage’s 53 in 2018 and Riquna Williams’s 51 in 2013. Only three other players — Taurasi, Lauren Jackson and Maya Moore — have come within 3 points of it.But if this season shows anything, there are plenty of candidates to get there again. More

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      The Liberty Took a Few Jets and a Boat to Become a Superteam

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      Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai, the Liberty owners, improved their facilities and chartered flights, drawing a W.N.B.A. fine — and enticing top free agents.In January, Clara Wu Tsai flew to Turkey on a trip that altered the balance of power in the W.N.B.A.Wu Tsai, who owns the Liberty with her husband, Joe Tsai, went there to chase Breanna Stewart, the off-season’s most coveted free agent. Accompanied by her team’s coach and general manager, Wu Tsai pitched Stewart in the middle of her Euroleague season with a team in Istanbul.But Wu Tsai left the rest of the team’s brass behind as she made the final push. She rented an 80-foot tour boat and took Stewart, Stewart’s wife, Marta Xargay, and the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Ruby, for a cruise. Gliding through the Bosporus, Wu Tsai reeled in Stewart, the two-time league most valuable player, with questions.“It was just her curiosity that grabbed me,” Stewart told me during an interview this month. “She wanted to know what I needed, what we needed as players, to perform at our best. I could see she wanted to improve the league as much as I do.”After days of cryptic tweets, Stewart announced on Feb. 1 that she would join a Liberty roster that had also added Jonquel Jones, the 2021 league M.V.P., to play alongside guard Sabrina Ionescu, a 2022 All-Star. The four-time All-Star guard Courtney Vandersloot inked with the team the day after Stewart, forming a megateam built to contend with the defending champion Las Vegas Aces — a supersquad in its own right that added the two-time M.V.P. Candace Parker this off-season.“Having a lot of players go to different teams is great because it’s shaking things up where we’re not just in this continuous track, running over and over, playing for the same teams,” Stewart said. “It’s creating a buzz. But there’s something more. Free agency also adds pressure on the owners to compete for us.”The Tsais, whose multibillion dollar wealth comes primarily from Joe’s leadership role with the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, sit at the forefront of the W.N.B.A.’s free-agent arms race, where players enjoy the attention of a group of team owners eager to invest.The former league M.V.P.’s Breanna Stewart, left, and Jonquel Jones joined the Liberty in the off-season, as did the four-time All-Star guard Courtney Vandersloot.Sarah Gordon/The Day, via Associated PressIn Atlanta, the Dream’s Larry Gottesdiener, founder of a real estate private equity firm, said he planned to spend $100 million to turn the team into a success. Mark Davis, who also owns the N.F.L.’s Las Vegas Raiders, recently built a 64,000-square-foot training facility for the Aces and last season signed Coach Becky Hammon to a record contract worth $1 million annually. (On Tuesday, the W.N.B.A. suspended Hammon for two games for comments she made to the All-Star forward Dearica Hamby about her pregnancy, which the league said violated its policy on respect in the workplace. The league also rescinded the team’s 2025 for first-round draft pick for promising Hamby impermissible benefits during contract negotiations.)When the Tsais bought the Liberty in 2019, the team had bottomed out during the last stages of James Dolan’s ownership. The franchise had made the finals in three of the W.N.B.A.’s first four seasons but was pushed out of Madison Square Garden to the 2,300-seat Westchester County Center for 2017 and ’18.After moving the team to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which the Tsais own and where their other team — the N.B.A.’s Nets — also play, the couple set out to give the Liberty amenities equal to their male counterparts. There’s an eight-person performance staff — multiple trainers, a sports psychologist and a nutritionist. An in-house chef prepares meals before and after practices and games. Players recover in brand-new hot and cold therapy tubs.Like every other team in the W.N.B.A., the Liberty fly commercial to away games for most of the season. They huddle in cramped seats and endure delays, transfers and cancellations like the rest of us.Tsai bristled at the limitation. So in 2021, he paid for the Liberty to use private jets, then shielded that fact from the league until the team was caught. The result: a $500,000 fine, the biggest in league history. Perhaps not unrelated: In 2021, the Liberty made the playoffs for the first time in five years and then repeated that feat in 2022.The fine was steep, but a point was made by the Tsais, loud and clear: Travel conditions must evolve. For now, the league has settled on a partial change, allowing teams to charter flights for the playoffs and a small number of games during the regular season.It was a key point of agreement for Wu Tsai and Stewart during that nautical conversation. Stewart, a vice president of the players’ union, has also been one of the league’s most vocal proponents for chartered flights, a factor she said played into her free agency decision.Over coffee at a Manhattan restaurant in early May, Wu Tsai — a self-described “hoop head” who grew up in Lawrence, Kan. — said she sees in Stewart a kindred spirit. “It was clear our interests were aligned on the potential” for lifting the Liberty and changing the W.N.B.A., Wu Tsai said.Asked about the travel contretemps with the league, Wu Tsai paused, drew a breath, and measured her comments carefully. “I don’t think you can put your best product on the floor if you’re not really focused on health and wellness,” she said, declining to elaborate.The Tsais, it must be noted, have a complex history. Few team owners in any sport have given as much support to social justice, including $50 million to boost economically distressed communities following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. But Alibaba has been criticized for business ties with Chinese companies said to violate human rights in China. And Tsai once called pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong a “separatist movement,” echoing language from Beijing.The world of sports is hardly immune from contradiction.What can also be said of the Tsais is that support for how they are advancing conditions in the league is widespread among players. The charter planes issue is perhaps the most salient litmus test. Stewart, for one, would play only for a team that is doing all it can to push on the issue until it becomes a reality all season long.She is not alone.“Two things can be true at once,” Jones said. “You can look at it and see what they did with those charters as definitely an unfair advantage. And you also can step back and be like, ‘Wow, at least they were making sure their players were taken care of.’ The Tsais sent a signal, a strong signal, of how much this means to them.”“They treat us as the professionals we are.” More

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      Breanna Stewart Will Sign With Liberty, Joining Fellow M.V.P. Jonquel Jones

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      Stewart, a two-time W.N.B.A. and four-time N.C.A.A. champion, had been outspoken about player travel leading up to the free-agent signing period.After weeks of cryptic Twitter messages featuring an assortment of mysteriously placed emoji as clues, Breanna Stewart finally made her plans crystal clear on Wednesday by posting on social media an image of the Empire State Building with “Stewie” emblazoned across it.One of the most accomplished basketball players in the last decade, Stewart announced she would join the Liberty in one of the biggest free-agent moves in W.N.B.A. history, although the Liberty have yet to disclose details of the deal.Stewart, who has averaged 20.3 points per game over her seven years in the league — all with the Seattle Storm — could form an exciting Big Three along with the point guard Sabrina Ionescu and the power forward Jonquel Jones, who arrived from the Connecticut Sun through a January trade, making the Liberty an instant title contender.By bolstering the roster with Jones, who won the 2021 W.N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Award with the Sun, and the 6-foot-4 Stewart, who was the M.V.P. in 2018, the Liberty endeavor to change their fortunes for good. Despite being one of the original eight W.N.B.A. franchises in 1997, the team has never won a championship. Stewart, meanwhile, has done it twice in the last five seasons, with the Storm winning the finals in 2018 and 2020. She is also a four-time All-Star in six years of play.The Liberty have not reached the finals since 2002, and they have not made it past the second round of the playoffs since 2015. With Stewart and Jones powering the frontcourt and Ionescu feeding them, the Liberty will be tabbed by many to pose a genuine threat to the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, a powerful team that is expected to be even more dangerous with the addition of the star forward Candace Parker.With her skill, size and leadership, Stewart was considered the top free agent in this year’s market, with the chance to tip the balance of power in the league with her decision. She spent weeks tantalizing fans on two coasts with a collection of emojis posted on social media. There was one with a person thinking, a scale and someone juggling three balls. Another featured a crystal ball, a sack of money and an hourglass and one even showed the Statue of Liberty.She finally posted the news that the Liberty had won, including a video of a beaming Stewart removing one shirt to reveal a Liberty jersey underneath while the song “Empire State of Mind” plays in the background. The post was likely sent from Turkey, where Stewart plays for Fenerbahce in the EuroLeague. Many W.N.B.A. players travel overseas in the league’s off-season to earn more money in Europe and Asia. Stewart missed the entire 2019 W.N.B.A. season after tearing an Achilles’ tendon while playing for Dynamo Kursk in Russia.Presumably, the deal with the Liberty will not be finalized until after a physical examination, but Stewart’s performances since her injury indicate she has completely recovered. In the three years since then, she has averaged 20.8 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game, all roughly the same as her overall career averages. Last year, she led the league in scoring with 21.8 points per game and finished second in M.V.P. voting behind Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson. She is still a superstar.Stewart matched the W.N.B.A. record for points in a playoff game in a loss to the Las Vegas Aces. Now she will lead the Liberty in an attempt to overtake the Aces.Lindsey Wasson/Associated PressStewart is also an outspoken advocate for improved travel for W.N.B.A. players, even offering to contribute financially to that goal. She posted on Jan. 22, “I would contribute my NIL, posts + production hrs to ensure we all travel in a way that prioritizes player health + safety, which ultimately results in a better product.”W.N.B.A. teams travel by commercial airlines and not by charter flights, as many other professional and college athletes do. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said the league cannot afford to pay upward of $20 million each season for charter travel, though the league has allowed it under certain extenuating circumstances. The Liberty were fined $500,000 for secretly chartering flights during the 2021 season.While news of the signing brought joy to Liberty fans, Storm supporters, who had been closely following Stewart’s social media accounts for signs of her intentions over the last few months, were saddened by her departure. One frowning fan posted a selfie of her wearing a “Stewie MVP” shirt, declaring, “I’m so sad.” Another account, attached to Women’s Pro Hockey Seattle, posted crying emojis and, “Noooooooo!”In her last game for Seattle, Stewart matched the W.N.B.A. single-game postseason record with 42 points in a losing effort against the Aces, who advanced to the finals with the win. She went 6 for 8 from behind the 3-point line as she tied Angel McCoughtry, who scored 42 for the Atlanta Dream in a 105-93 victory over the Liberty in 2010.It was also the last game for the Seattle legend Sue Bird, who retired after the season as a 13-time All-Star and four-time champion with the Storm. Now, the Storm are left to forge ahead without two of their most celebrated stars.A native of North Syracuse, N.Y., Stewart was the most south-after recruit in the country in high school and chose to play at the University of Connecticut. She helped the Huskies compile a gaudy 151-5 record and win four straight national championships, including UConn’s last in 2016. She was also named Player of the Year by The Associated Press following her last three seasons there.The Storm selected Stewart with the No. 1 overall pick in 2016. She won the league’s Rookie of the Year Award and within two years had won her first championship. Now the challenge is to come back to her home state and help an old franchise to finally break through. More

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      Tiffany Jackson, Texas Star Forward and W.N.B.A. Veteran, Dies at 37

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      She was an All-American in college and spent nine years as a pro. “I don’t think I’ve seen a player as competitive,” her college coach said.Tiffany Jackson, an All-American forward for the University of Texas women’s basketball team who went on to play nine seasons in the W.N.B.A., died on Monday in Dallas. She was 37.The cause was cancer, the university said.Jackson noticed a lump in one of her breasts in 2015 while she was playing overseas in Israel during the W.N.B.A. off-season. She put off being tested until she returned to the United States and, even then, not until after the start of the season for the W.N.B.A.’s Tulsa Shock.“I didn’t let my teammates know until the playoffs,” she told ESPN in 2016, “because I knew I was going to have to go back to Dallas, after Game 2, win or lose, to start treatment. I ended up telling everybody via mass text, because I was afraid if I did it in person, I would just break down.”Jackson was a powerhouse player at the University of Texas, where she was the only women’s basketball player in the school’s history to score at least 1,000 points, grab 1,000 rebounds and have 300 steals and 150 blocks. She is ranked fifth overall in points with 1,197.“What made her stand out was her versatility,” Jody Conradt, who coached the Texas women’s team from 1976 to 2007, said in an interview. “She was 6-3, very mobile and could play multiple positions. But that was secondary to her competitiveness — I don’t think I’ve seen a player as competitive as Tiffany.”In her four years at Texas, Jackson averaged 15.6 points and 8.4 rebounds a game. As a freshman she helped lead the team to the Sweet 16 round of the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament in the 2003-4 season.Her 2004-5 season was her strongest: She averaged 18.3 points and 8.7 rebounds a game.Tiffany Jackson was born on April 26, 1985, in Longview, Texas. Her mother, Cassie Brooks, had played basketball for the University of New Mexico; her father, Marques Jackson, had been a tight end at the University of Tulsa.At Duncanville High School, near Dallas, Tiffany led the Pantherettes to a state title in 2003, scoring a team-high 16 points in the championship game, shortly after being named a McDonald’s All-American.Jackson was recruited vigorously by more than 60 colleges. One coach said that the school that signed her would become an instant championship contender.“That’s a big statement to make, and I feel good that people think that much of me,” Jackson told The Austin American-Statesman in 2003. “It makes me want to work harder to prove them right.”While the Longhorns never won a national title, Jackson’s star was undiminished. Drafted by the New York Liberty with the fifth overall pick in the 2007 W.N.B.A. draft, she played with the team until she was traded to the Tulsa Shock (now the Dallas Wings) in 2010. She played a final season with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2017.She averaged 6.2 points and 4.5 rebounds a game over her career. She was at her best in 2011, with career highs of 12.4 points and 8.4 rebounds a game.Jackson took off the 2012 season to give birth to her son, Marley. She sat out the 2016 season for breast cancer treatment, which included radiation and a mastectomy.“After that first month, never in my mind did I think I wasn’t going to play again,” she told USA Today in 2017. “So throughout my entire treatment, I was always working out. It was something that kept me going.”Information about her survivors was not immediately available.After retiring as a player in 2018, Jackson became an assistant coach for two seasons at the University of Texas. This year, she was named head coach of the women’s basketball team at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. She died before she could coach a game for the team. More