The New York Liberty's Superteam Blueprint Is Working To Perfection
Led by a historic group of additions — Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot — the Liberty have their eye on the WNBA championship prize.
(co-byline: Javon Edmonds / The Messenger)
Given how many new pieces New York Liberty added during the offseason, it took some time for the star-studded team — featuring two MVPs and an All-WNBA backcourt — to find its rhythm and live up to the preseason “super team” hype. The Liberty made its biggest statement yet last Sunday with a 99-61 win over the Las Vegas Aces.
The Aces (25-3) were the first team to clinch a spot in the 2023 WNBA Playoffs, but the New York Liberty (22-6) followed on Thursday night thanks to a win against the Atlanta Dream and a Minnesota Lynx loss to the Indiana Fever.
During WNBA free agency, New York signed former MVP forwards Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones, and Courtney Vandersloot — who ranks third all-time on the WNBA’s assist leaderboard — to join All-WNBA guard Sabrina Ionescu.
The result? A quantum leap in the WNBA standings from where they were a year ago.
After finishing 16-20 with a -3.0 net rating (point margin per 100 possessions) and barely making the playoffs in 2022, New York is off to a 22-6 start with a +9.2 net rating in 2023. Among teams that had a net rating of -2.0 or worse in a season, only the 2011 Minnesota Lynx had a better turnaround in net rating the following season – and there are still 12 regular season games remaining.
The Lynx ended up sweeping the WNBA finals that season, so that’s pretty good company for the Liberty to find themselves in.
Moreover, the Liberty are proving more than any WNBA team in history that it pays to bring the stars together. Three of New York’s top four players by win shares – Stewart, Jones and Vandersloot – were not with the team last season, as were five of the top seven. Generating a total of 22.3 win shares (prorated to a full 40-game schedule), the Liberty’s new players have driven nearly 71% of the team’s total value this year, putting New York on pace for the most productive cohort to ever join a WNBA team in a single offseason (excluding expansion teams, for obvious reasons).
The Liberty and Aces are set to meet three more times before playoffs begin, all in the month of August, so they will have plenty of opportunities to test out new strategies and size each other up before an expected showdown in the WNBA Finals.
Should New York make it that far, the team will be aiming to win the franchise’s first ever WNBA title. The Liberty has played in the WNBA Finals four times previously, falling to the now defunct Houston Comets in 1997, 1999 and 2000, and the Los Angeles Sparks in 2002.
Filed under: WNBA