Season Preview: The New York Liberty
The new-look Liberty enter 2023 as one of the favorites to win the WNBA title.
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The WNBA season officially tips off tomorrow, and the New York Liberty enter 2023 as title contenders, a major shift from where the team has been in recent seasons. The Liberty haven’t finished over .500 or advanced past the first round of the playoffs since 2017. While 2017 wasn’t that long ago, it was an entirely different era of Liberty basketball: a different owner, a different arena, a roster that’s been completely rebuilt.
This past offseason changed the trajectory of the Liberty. Last year might have been their best season since 2017, but the team as it was built wasn’t going to contend for a title. And then came Breanna Stewart in free agency. Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot joined her as well, transforming the Liberty into one of the best teams in the WNBA.
Well…one of the best teams on paper. We haven’t seen what this team can do on the floor yet, and team owner Joe Tsai’s already seen this whole “superteam” blow up with his NBA franchise. Will it work this time? Can the Liberty fulfill their potential?
Recapping the 2022 Season
I’ll keep this section brief, since the 2022 Liberty season doesn’t really tell us too much about the 2023 Liberty season.
Last year, the Liberty finished 16-20, claiming the seven seed heading into the playoffs, where the team lost in three games to the Chicago Sky.
2022 was probably most notable for being Sabrina Ionescu’s breakout season. After appearing in just three games in 2020 before a season-ending ankle injury, she shot just 37.9% in her first full WNBA season in 2021, averaging 11.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and 6.1 assists per game.
Then came 2022, where Ionescu showed improvement across the board. She shot 41.1% from the floor while averaging 17.4 points, 7.1 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game. Part of what helped unlock Ionescu? Playing with a point guard. With Crystal Dangerfield beside her, Ionescu was able to play off the ball more, and that led to not only individual success but also team success. The Liberty had a net rating of -4.77 when Ionescu was on the floor without Dangerfield; that jumped to +1.67 when the two were both on the court.
Reasons for Optimism in 2023
Since we’re already talking about Sabrina and a point guard, let’s start with Sabrina and another point guard: Courtney Vandersloot. The Liberty replaced Dangerfield with arguably the league’s best point guard, something that I believe is going to really help unlock Ionescu even more.
Per Synergy, just 35.3% of Ionescu’s jump shots last year came via catch-and-shoot looks. She had an effective field goal percentage of 54.5% on those attempts. Meanwhile, 63.3% of her jump shots were off the dribble, and her effective field goal percentage on those was 43.2%.
With Vandersloot as the lead ball handler, I’d expect more catch-and-shoot attempts for Ionescu. Sloot’s a gifted passer who ranked fifth in the league last season in points generated by assists, a stat Ionescu was second in. The Liberty now have two elite passers. Ionescu’s assists likely go down playing beside Vandersloot, but her open looks as an off-ball shooter should increase.
Alright, now on to the real top reason for optimism this season: Breanna Stewart.
When you add one of the two best players in the W, your team gets better. Stewart led the league in win shares last season with 9.1, and her 21.8 points per game also topped the leaderboard. Stewart’s a dynamic player who can score at every level. Per WNBA.com, she ranked third in field-goal percentage in the restricted area among players with at least three attempts there per game while also shooting 37.9% from three, which ranked 20th in the league. Stewart’s efficiency from deep should increase in New York because the makeup of this team means she’ll theoretically face lighter defensive pressure, since defenses can’t key in on her as much with so many offensive threats on the floor.
Oh, and the Liberty also added Jonquel Jones. The 2021 WNBA MVP saw her numbers dip last season, but a lot of that was because she had lower usage. She was still as efficient as she was in 2021, with her true shooting percentages for the two seasons being virtually identical—61.4% in 2021, 61.5% in 2022. Jones will likely play more at the five in New York than she did in Connecticut, where the emergence of Brionna Jones impacted her playing time last season. Her ability to alter shots on the interior—her 4.1% block rate ranked 11th in the W last season—while also scoring at multiple levels offensively and stretching out to the 3-point line makes her one of the league’s most fascinating players.
The Liberty have some great top-end talent, and they’ve managed to do that while also having a lot of strong role players. The fact that Betnijah Laney, who has averaged double-digit points per game in three straight years and won Most Improved Player in 2020, is the fifth-best player in New York’s projected starting lineup is wild. The fact that Kayla Thornton is coming off the bench feels equally wild, as Thornton posted the 18th-best true shooting percentage in the league last year for Dallas.
The team’s frontcourt depth is particularly strong. Stefanie Dolson shot 39.4% from three last year and can also provide some strength in the paint. Han Xu shot 44.4% from three and is 6-foot-10. The Liberty have the luxury of a lot of size at the four and five and also having a lot of shooting at the four and five, making them a matchup nightmare.
Some Concerns
There are two WNBA teams that don’t have major concerns: the Aces and the Liberty. But while there’s not some overarching reason to worry about the team, there are some things that New York will need to figure out this season.
First, there’s simply learning to play together as a team. With so many new pieces, it might take a bit to gel. Ionescu will have to figure out how to take more of a backseat than she has so far in her career. Stewart and Jones will have to learn to coexist—fitting two former MVPs into one lineup will definitely take some adjustment.
One good thing about this: Stewart and Vandersloot play together overseas, so the Liberty get a little bit of a jump there.
The other concern—and this is the bigger one for me—comes at point guard. Yes, they have Vandersloot. Yes, they also have Ionescu, who can play the one, so you can stagger their minutes to have one on the floor most of the time. But there’s not a lot of depth at point guard. Marine Johannès is expected to come over from France relatively soon and can provide some ball-handling, but this team doesn’t really have the personnel to weather an injury to Vandersloot or Ionescu. The frontcourt depth means that an extended absence from Stewart or Jones probably doesn’t kill the team’s title shot, but it’s hard to say the same about the backcourt. Vandersloot’s the only true point guard on the roster, something that could become an issue. Maybe Stewart could play a point forward role, but…I don’t know, there’s at least some concern for me about the thinness of the backcourt.
2023 Outlook
The Liberty have the talent to be the best team in the WNBA and to win a championship. Barring injuries, the team should expect to at least finish second in the regular season and advance to the WNBA Finals.
And that’s just what I expect. It’s possible they get off to a slow start, but a healthy Liberty team is going to finish as the No. 2 seed, and they’ll have a great chance to win the WNBA title. Even though the team has the same ownership as the Brooklyn Nets, I don’t see this going south like the superteam situation in the NBA did. This collection of talent doesn’t have the same issues that collection of talent did, and aside from some questions about depth at point guard, this roster just doesn’t really have much when it comes to holes.
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