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    Liberty Guard Sabrina Ionescu’s Historic WNBA Season, By the Numbers

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    Ionescu, the All-Star Liberty guard, had a historic season in her third year that helped propel her team to the playoffs.After a serious ankle injury in her rookie season and a somewhat tentative second year, Sabrina Ionescu has in her third year hit the kind of heights everyone expected of her, and her Liberty are back in the W.N.B.A. playoffs.The No. 7 Liberty will face the No. 2 Chicago Sky — the defending champions — on Wednesday for Game 1 of a best-of-three series in the opening round.When the Liberty drafted Ionescu No. 1 overall in 2020, hopes were high. The team had been terrible for two seasons, but Ionescu had been a transcendent star at Oregon, where she had an N.C.A.A. record 26 triple-doubles. She seemed like the kind of player who could turn a team around almost by herself.In just her second game in the W.N.B.A., she fired in 33 points, including six 3-pointers, added 7 rebounds and 7 assists and had fans thrilled about the future.That future turned sour quickly when, in her third game, she went down with a severe ankle injury that would keep her out for the rest of the season.Without her, and without their veteran star Tina Charles, who had been traded away, the team was abysmal, finishing 2-20.Ionescu drove the Liberty’s offense this season, leading the team in scoring and assists.Sean D. Elliot/The Day, via Associated PressThe team bounced back in 2021 and sneaked into the playoffs, but it was a group effort led by Betnijah Laney, Natasha Howard (after a return from injury), Sami Whitcomb and Michaela Onyenwere, who was named the rookie of the year, that pushed them there. Although Ionescu played a full season, her scoring game fell a bit short of what might have been expected.Not that she didn’t help the team, but it was in a more supporting role: Though she was among the league’s assist leaders, she averaged just 11.7 points a game and dealt with lingering ankle pain. She was often the third or fourth scoring option.But in her third season, Ionescu has stepped forward, and she was named to her first All-Star team. She has improved in almost every category, playing more minutes, shooting at a higher percentage and increasing her rebounding, assists and steals numbers while reducing her turnovers.Notably, she has taken a more prominent role in the offense, shooting about 14 times a game to lead the team, up from just under 10 times a game last season, leading her to score a team-high 17.4 points a game. Playing in all 36 games helped her make the league’s top 10 in total points, assists and rebounds, the only player to do so. And her rebounding numbers are especially impressive since she is the Liberty’s main ballhandler.Ionescu also made history in her third season, becoming the first player ever to record a triple-double in three quarters and, separately, the first player ever to score at least 30 points as part of a triple-double. Those two triple-doubles brought her into a tie with Chicago’s Candace Parker for the most career triple-doubles, with three.Ionescu’s step forward, as well as having Howard available the whole season, helped the Liberty return to the playoffs and weather the loss of Laney for much of the season with a knee injury.Last season, the Liberty lost their single-elimination playoff game, 83-82, to the Phoenix Mercury. Ionescu had 14 points and 11 assists, but she missed a 30-foot desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have won the game.Ionescu shot better from 3 this season than last season, good enough to be fifth in the league for 3-pointers made.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesThe team has a chance to rectify that in the opening round of the playoffs this year, which will be best of three instead of single elimination. But even with Laney’s return, the odds are long. Eight of the 12 W.N.B.A. teams make the playoffs, leaving room for teams that finished under .500, including the Liberty (16-20).A matchup against the strong Sky (26-10) with All-Stars such as Parker, Kahleah Copper, Courtney Vandersloot and Emma Meesseman, and with the first two games in Chicago, will be tough for the Liberty.The Liberty are one of the eight founding W.N.B.A. franchises and the only one still in its original city that has never won the W.N.B.A. title. Its last decade has been especially fallow, with just one trip to the semifinals or conference finals.Like any team, the Liberty will need to acquire talent, draft shrewdly and catch some breaks to step up to championship quality. But more than anything else, they will have to rely on Ionescu to continue playing at the stellar level she did this year. Or preferably, given that she is still only 24, to get even better. More

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      All the Pieces Seemed to Align for the Liberty Except One: Winning

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      Despite a more stable home at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, a new coach and stars in place, the team has struggled with injuries and gaining traction in the competitive New York sports market.The Liberty had seemingly done everything right.They moved into a new home last year at Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn. The star power of a top draft pick and a roster with depth to match promised a strong season this year. There was a new coach. Even a new-look mascot.But even as all the pieces fell into place for the Liberty, one of the W.N.B.A.’s original eight teams in 1997, there has been one glaring exception: winning.“Lately I’ve been feeling like maybe this is where we’re supposed to be right now,” said Francois Monroc, 41, a fan who watched the Liberty beat the Chicago Sky, 83-80, on Saturday in a rare strong showing. “There is a lot of ambition for players in New York, and people living in New York want their teams to succeed. It’s hard to accept failure. New Yorkers are very impatient, waiting and waiting is tough.”The Liberty are 10-17 this year. The team started the season 1-7 before turning it around in June, only to lose momentum this month after the All-Star break.The win on Saturday night against the Sky (21-7), the defending champions and the top team in the league, broke a five-game losing streak and served as a balm on a rocky season.A spate of injuries has left the Liberty with a poor record, just when a winning season could have helped the franchise get a better foothold in the hypercompetitive New York market.New Yorkers could use a winner. The last team in the four major sports to win a championship was the Giants, who won the Super Bowl after the 2011 season. The Liberty haven’t won a championship, and the Nets, their arena-mates at Barclays Center, haven’t won one since their days in the American Basketball Association.“We are trying to get a ring,” said Janice Battle, 74, who has stuck by the team despite its ups and downs. “That’s been a little disappointing. But it’s exciting to belong to a team, a professional women’s team, right here in Brooklyn.”Battle has been following the team since that first season and has traveled with the team as it played in five locations over the years, from Madison Square Garden to White Plains, N.Y., and now to Barclays Center, which the team has called home since 2021.“Every year it’s hard, but you know, you’re a fan,” Battle said with a slight shrug. “There’s the Yankee fans. There’s the Met fans. There’s the Giants fans. So I’m a Liberty fan. I love them.”Still, enthusiastic supporters or not, with just nine games left in the regular season, their chances of a postseason are waning.Much of that pressure rests on the shoulders of Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 draft. Ionescu played only three games in the 2020 season at a so-called bubble in Florida before suffering a season-ending ankle injury.As Ionescu began to recover, more injuries plagued the team. Jocelyn Willoughby tore an Achilles’ tendon before the 2021 season and Natasha Howard missed 15 games because of a knee injury; all three came back this season, only for the team to lose Betnijah Laney, who was named to her first All-Star team last season, to a knee injury this season.The Liberty have had some flashes of success. Ionescu set a franchise record for points in a game against the Las Vegas Aces earlier this month, finishing with 31 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists for her third triple-double of her career. On Saturday, Howard secured her sixth double-double for the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds.Fans had hoped that a new coach could more consistently make something of the team’s core group of Ionescu; Howard; DiDi Richards, a second-year guard; Stefanie Dolson, a veteran center; Michaela Onyenwere, the 2021 W.N.B.A. rookie of the year; and the reserve center Han Xu. Marine Johannes, a guard added midseason, has also become a rotation player.The Liberty hired Sandy Brondello, the former head coach of the Phoenix Mercury, to try to jump-start the 2022 season. That hasn’t always been the case.“I think that the players’ ability is one thing, but the coach’s ability to get the best out of their players in a consistent manner is probably more important,” said Dara Ottley-Brown, 59. “That’s the challenge here.”The team still has attendance problems. Attendance averages around 5,100 fans per game this season, leaving the Liberty ranked eighth out of the 12 teams. Saturday night’s game had 6,926 on hand; a July 14 game against the Las Vegas Aces, one of the best teams in the league, drew 9,896, a record for the season so far. Barclays Center has a 17,732-seat capacity, but the upper tier seats are often roped off for Liberty games.“It’s a combination of being on a roller coaster with the team, but also just watching and figuring out how women’s basketball can have more traction,” said Martha Stark, 62, who went to high school at Brooklyn Tech just a few blocks from the arena and has been a season-ticket holder since 1997.Elaine Kim, 47, has been coming to Liberty games with her 12-year-old twins since they were little, and said it’s been fun to watch the team — and the mascots — evolve. Ellie the Elephant was introduced as the team’s new one in 2021.But Kim said she believed the league and its teams still needed more investment to make a bigger splash. Low salary caps, irregular access to games on television and few marketing dollars compared to their male counterparts have long dogged the W.N.B.A., despite a growing fan base.“The W.N.B.A. needs the kind of investment that the men sports get,” she said. “We’re proving that there’s a lot of interest, that it’s economically viable.”No doubt, there is some excitement around the team despite its record but ultimately New York demands winners, no matter the sport.“I know the record isn’t necessarily exactly what we would want it to be,” said Alex Don, 26. “But from last year to this year, you can definitely start to see the improvement and see where we could maybe be two or three years down the line.”Don and his group of friends, including Paul Garlick, find satisfaction in watching the team evolve “as opposed to hopping on the bandwagon when they’re good,” Garlick said.On Saturday, the Liberty and the Sky went point for point until the bitter end, with a key 2-point jumper from Ionescu in the final seconds and a block by Onyenwere on Candace Parker sealing the game and snapping the Sky’s six-game winning streak.Howard said the win was an opportunity to right the team’s course.“We found ourselves in this game right here,” she said. “That’s one thing we’ve definitely talked about — we need to learn how to win games. That’s a start right there.”They face Chicago again on Friday.Young Liberty fans like Isabella Taylor, 6, point to high hopes for a broader following for the team.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesJanice Battle has been a Liberty fan for 26 years.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesPaul Garlick and his friends all share a season ticket package.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesYuuki, left, and Ayumi Chang-Yasui, 12-year-old twins, saw the Liberty defeat the Chicago Sky on Saturday.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesFrancois and Felicia Monroc during the game on Saturday. Francois got hooked on the W.N.B.A. in the 1990s when he was a teenager.Calla Kessler for The New York Times More

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      The Liberty Are Reinventing Themselves

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      The team enters the 2022 W.N.B.A. season with a new coach and center, returning players who were hampered by injuries last year, and the desire to become full-fledged title contenders.The Liberty are not sure what the full identity of their revamped team should be. But they are certain about one aspect of it.“I want teams to kind of be scared of us when they have to be on offense,” said forward Natasha Howard, who won the W.N.B.A.’s Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2019, when she was with the Seattle Storm.This will be Howard’s second season with the Liberty, but in many ways, and for many reasons, it seems unlikely to be much like her first. The team has a new head coach (Sandy Brondello), a new veteran center (Stefanie Dolson) and, players said, a new commitment to becoming a championship contender once the season begins May 6.“There’s a sense of urgency,” guard Sabrina Ionescu said during the Liberty’s media day on Thursday. She added that the team did not want to wait years to become better, and had a “Why not us?” mentality.The Liberty finished last season with a 12-20 record and slid into the playoffs as the eighth seed. They lost to the fifth-seeded Phoenix Mercury in a first-round single-elimination game. The team had injury woes all season: Jocelyn Willoughby tore an Achilles’ tendon in a preseason scrimmage; Howard missed 15 games because of a knee injury; Ionescu dealt with a lingering ankle injury.All three are back and said they are feeling good.“I’m way ahead of where I used to be,” Willoughby said.Another returner is guard Asia Durr, who goes by AD. Durr, the second overall draft pick in 2019, missed the past two seasons as they recovered from Covid-19. On Thursday, Durr said they were still dealing with confusion and brain fog but that Liberty teammates had been helpful.“It’s pretty challenging to stay patient every single day,” Durr said, punctuating the last three words.Like Howard and several others, Durr mentioned defense as the focus of this year’s team. Brondello, who coached the Mercury to the finals last season in her eighth year with the team, said she wanted the Liberty to have an “aggressive mentality.”More points in the paint. Fewer turnovers. Not settling for outside shots. Drawing more fouls.“We’re trying to develop a tough team,” Brondello said.At the core of the team are players like Ionescu; Howard; Betnijah Laney, who was named to her first All-Star team last season; and Michaela Onyenwere, the 2021 W.N.B.A. rookie of the year. “I’m always looking to grow,” Laney said, adding that she’s surrounded by great players.Joining them is Dolson, who won a championship with the Chicago Sky last year.Dolson, a 6-foot-5 center entering her ninth season, said she likes to post up — even though people don’t think she does — and that it will be difficult for teams to face off against her and the 6-foot-2 Howard.“It’s hard to scout when both post players can kind of do everything,” she said.Dolson averaged 7.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game last season, and shot 40.4 percent from 3-point range. Howard averaged 16.2 points and 7.2 rebounds in 13 games last season.Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu had a double-double in the team’s playoff loss to Phoenix.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesVeterans like Howard and Dolson will be key to the Liberty’s success, but so will the younger players, who spoke on Thursday about how they’ve grown and what they still need to improve.“I was so lost last year,” said DiDi Richards, a second-year guard-forward.Richards said she often was in her own head while on the court, instead of being vocal, but she is working on changing that as coaches ask her to take on a bigger leadership role. “I’m ready for it,” she said.Onyenwere spoke confidently about defense — “not really a skill; it’s all effort” — but also said she wanted to improve on offense after shooting just 32.7 percent from 3-point range last season.Guard Sami Whitcomb, who went 42.5 percent from 3-point range last year, is the team’s most prolific and best long-range shooter. She came to the Liberty last year after four seasons in Seattle, and she said she was excited about helping the team create a new identity. But, she said, it won’t happen “overnight.”Some things do happen quickly in sports, though — like going from W.N.B.A. prospect to Liberty rookie.The Liberty traded with the Storm to get the 18th pick in the draft on April 11 and used it to select Lorela Cubaj, a 6-foot-4 forward from Georgia Tech. Four days later, she signed a rookie contract with the team. Three days after that, training camp began.On Thursday, she said that she had developed as a facilitator while at Georgia Tech and hoped to use that skill with the Liberty. “I just want to put my teammates in the best position to score,” she said.One thing she wants to leave in Georgia: the food. Cubaj, who is from Italy, joked that she would not miss the pizza from Atlanta now that she is in New York. 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