Rebecca Lobo was at Sunday Mass in a cathedral close to Madison Sq. Backyard in 1997, the primary season for the WNBA and her New York Liberty. It was time for the Signal of Peace ritual.
“I flip round, I shake this man’s hand and say, ‘Peace be with you,'” Lobo advised ESPN. “And he says, ‘You want to be more durable on the boards.'”
There’s religious religion, after which there’s the Liberty trustworthy. Some true believers have been members of the group’s congregation for all 28 WNBA seasons. They’ve seen 19 playoff appearances, Corridor of Fame gamers, celeb followers courtside, some unimaginable video games. However they have not seen a WNBA championship.
The Liberty are one in every of three authentic WNBA franchises nonetheless within the metropolis the place they started. The others — the Los Angeles Sparks and the Phoenix Mercury — every have gained three WNBA titles. Not the Liberty. 5 instances, they’ve performed for a WNBA title. 5 instances, they’ve misplaced.
New York is hoping that is the 12 months that modifications.
After falling brief to the Las Vegas Aces final 12 months, the Liberty rolled to a 32-8 regular-season report and No. 1 seed within the 2024 playoffs. Then they avenged final season’s WNBA Finals defeat by taking down the Aces within the semifinals.
But heartache has at all times been a part of the Liberty legacy: coming near the final word prize, but by no means fairly getting it. Thursday’s opening recreation of the 2024 WNBA Finals was the newest instance of falling brief in Liberty lore: A stinging time beyond regulation loss on their house courtroom after main by 15 factors with simply over 5 minutes left. New York evened the collection Sunday because it shifts to Minneapolis for 2 video games.
The WNBA has drawn unprecedented attendance, viewership and scores this season, with many new followers tuning in. However the brand new followers won’t know the tortured historical past of the Torch — that the Liberty have been the WNBA’s most star-crossed franchise. Teresa Weatherspoon’s half-court heave to win on the buzzer in Recreation 2 of the 1999 WNBA Finals is a signature shot for the Liberty and for the league itself. However the subsequent day, New York misplaced the collection.
After dropping within the 2002 Finals, New York did not return to the championship collection till final 12 months, after a two-decade hole. ESPN spoke to Weatherspoon, different present and former Liberty gamers, executives and homeowners, plus gamers and coaches across the league about New York’s historical past, and why this season may be completely different.
Now with a group together with two former MVPs in Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones; the league’s lively profession help chief, Courtney Vandersloot; the franchise’s most up-to-date No. 1 decide, Sabrina Ionescu; a championship coach in Sandy Brondello; and the WNBA’s most glamorous mascot, Ellie the Elephant, the Liberty are once more chasing their long-awaited completely happy ending.
1:59
Liberty bounce again, take Recreation 2 from the Lynx
Breanna Stewart and the Liberty defeat the Lynx 80-66 in Recreation 2 to even up the WNBA Finals at 1-1.
THE NBA LAUNCHED the WNBA in 1997 with eight franchises — New York, Charlotte, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Sacramento and Utah — affiliated with NBA groups. The NBA was a billion-dollar enterprise. The WNBA — although it had community tv contracts, sponsorships and the NBA’s backing — was a startup.
New Jersey native Carol Blazejowski, one of many greats of Nineteen Seventies school basketball and the short-lived Girls’s Skilled Basketball League, was the Liberty’s first normal supervisor. She was employed in January 1997 with an infinite to-do listing forward of the inaugural recreation in June.
Carol Blazejowski, Liberty GM, 1997-2010: “We had no employees, no gamers, no uniforms, no title, no emblem, no coach. My first workplace at Madison Sq. Backyard was a closet proper off the freight elevator. Folks can be making deliveries every single day, and so they’d say, ‘Hey, woman, have you learnt the place so-and-so’s workplace is?'”
Rebecca Lobo, Liberty ahead, 1997-2001: “Blaze was in every single place. She was at practices. She was in any respect the video games. She can be within the locker room. I might see her and suppose, ‘There’s the boss.'”
Blazejowski: “I used to be working on the NBA on the time in licensing [when] they mentioned, ‘Would you wish to be a GM?’ And I had no concept what these duties included. Whereas I used to be getting gamers, I used to be juggling one million balls.
“We had a number of names [to consider], however ‘Liberty’ made essentially the most sense. I used to be taking a look at logos and keep in mind not being pleased with any of them. A designer was exhibiting me mock-ups and was prepared to go away. And one truly fell out of the jacket pocket of a kind of huge portfolios. It had the colour inexperienced in it. I picked it up and mentioned, ‘How did we miss this one?’ It was excellent.”
Gamers who had spent years in skilled leagues abroad have been thrilled to compete in the USA. Sue Wicks, who was 6 years previous when the Knicks gained the 1973 NBA title, New York’s final professional basketball championship, was a Lengthy Island native. However gamers from all around the nation made up the remainder of the roster: Lobo (from Massachusetts, Weatherspoon (Texas), Crystal Robinson (Oklahoma), Vickie Johnson (Louisiana), Kym Hampton (Kentucky) and Becky Hammon (South Dakota). All seven are within the Liberty’s Ring of Honor.
Wicks joked that all of them shortly grew to become New Yorkers, particularly Weatherspoon, some extent guard from tiny Pineland, Texas, who had gained an NCAA championship at Louisiana Tech.
Sue Wicks, Liberty ahead, 1997-2002: “The DNA of the Liberty was Spoon. There are several types of stars. With Spoon, it was about grit, onerous work, ardour, give the whole lot it’s important to your teammates and to the followers. As a result of the viewers in New York is a part of the entire thing.”
Teresa Weatherspoon, Liberty guard, 1997-2003: “We had the chance to stay within the metropolis then, too, so we obtained the texture of town, the grind of it. We needed our group to be like town. We needed New Yorkers to really feel we have been grinding simply as onerous as they have been.”
Crystal Robinson, Liberty ahead, 1999-2005: “Spoon pushed you to knock down the wall that stored you from being nice.”
The Liberty performed at Madison Sq. Backyard, and the ambiance for his or her house video games was a trademark of the WNBA’s early days.
Sandy Brondello, WNBA guard, 1998-2003: “It was simply an aura, one thing about that area and its historical past and simply the way in which it seemed once you walked in. The followers have been actually into it and obtained actually loud. And I wasn’t used to enjoying in entrance of well-known folks. Particularly being from Australia, I assumed, ‘Wow, that is attention-grabbing.'”
Lobo: “Rosie O’Donnell was a season-ticket holder. Tyra Banks can be courtside, Gregory Hines, Joan Jett, Penny Marshall, Billy Baldwin. It felt like a celebration, just like the followers have been there to rejoice and have enjoyable.”
However the Liberty’s on-court identification was additionally outlined by close to misses. Within the league’s inaugural season, Houston beat New York within the championship recreation on Aug. 30, 1997. Lobo mentioned she and her teammates went out after the sport and later returned to their resort to listen to the information that Diana, Princess of Wales, had been killed in a automotive crash in Paris.
Lobo: “That put issues in a distinct perspective, clearly. However as for the loss itself, none of us at that time had any concept how onerous it was going to be to win a championship.”
Richie Adubato changed Nancy Darsch as coach in 1999. That season, Weatherspoon’s famed half-court shot gained Recreation 2 of the WNBA Finals, however the Comets gained Recreation 3 to take their third championship. Weatherspoon mentioned that for years she could not stand to see footage of The Shot: It reminded her not solely of the collection loss but in addition of the demise of her nephew in a automotive crash earlier that 12 months. She had devoted that season to him.
Houston once more beat the Liberty within the 2000 Finals. Then within the 2002 Finals, the Los Angeles Sparks defeated New York. It might be the Liberty’s final journey to the Finals till final 12 months.
THE LIBERTY ADVANCED to the Japanese Convention finals in 2004, 2008 and 2010. They misplaced every time.
Pat Coyle, Liberty coach, 2004-09: “Should you checked out pure expertise, we possibly did not have as a lot as another groups. We did have terrific chemistry. However the league was good, it was actually simply so onerous to win.”
Together with losses on the courtroom, the Liberty skilled personnel misses, too. They traded guard Hammon to San Antonio in 2007, and he or she subsequently had one of the best seasons of her profession with the Stars.
Becky Hammon, Liberty guard 1999-2006: “They thought I had hit my ceiling. But it surely ended up being one of the best factor ever for me personally and professionally, as a result of it linked me to the Spurs and Gregg Popovich, and my path to teaching. I used to be pissed on the time, as a result of I did not understand it was coming. I used to be enjoying in Spain, and I had messages on my telephone. I known as Blaze, and it was like a 30-second name, ‘Thanks on your providers.'”
Blazejowski: “You have to do what you consider is true on the time. It turned out it was a disastrous transfer on my behalf, but it surely labored out completely for Becky.”
New York had the No. 1 decide within the Sacramento Monarchs’ dispersal draft in 2009. The Liberty opted for Nicole Powell, who stayed in New York three years. No. 2 choice Rebekkah Brunson, who’s now a Lynx assistant coach, spent 9 seasons with Minnesota, profitable 4 championships.
Rebekkah Brunson, WNBA ahead, 2004-18: “On the time, I keep in mind considering, ‘Nicely, New York is nearer to D.C., the place I am from. That will be fairly cool.’ However typically issues simply occur the way in which they’re purported to.”
Blazejowski’s final main acquisition, by way of commerce, was guard Cappie Pondexter in 2010. Blazejowski was fired after that season. After 14 seasons with one GM, the Liberty entered an eight-season interval with three GMs. Two of them — John Whisenant and Invoice Laimbeer — additionally coached the group.
New York traded for one more star, middle Tina Charles, in 2014. However the Liberty by no means discovered the proper mixture to win all of it.
Sue Fowl, Seattle Storm guard, 2002-22, and Lengthy Island native: “Later in my profession after I was in free company, it is honest to say I thought-about New York. I may have completed my profession in a Liberty uniform. I would not have gone anyplace else. However I made a decision to remain in Seattle.”
In 2015, Isiah Thomas controversially was appointed Liberty president regardless of his involvement in a sexual harassment lawsuit the Knicks had misplaced whereas he was the group’s president. Nonetheless, the Liberty had the league’s finest report and superior for the eighth time to the East finals. They took a 1-0 lead within the best-of-three collection towards the Indiana Fever and held an 18-point lead in Recreation 2. However they misplaced that recreation after which scored a season-low 51 factors in a Recreation 3 loss, one other crushing finish to a season.
Tina Charles, Liberty middle, 2015-19: “What occurred? Tamika Catchings is what occurred. [Catchings scored 16 of her 25 points in the second half to lead Indiana to a 70-64 win.] She dominated, being the skilled participant with the killer intuition she had.”
Tanisha Wright, Liberty guard, 2015-16, 2019: “I do not know if we have been simply gassed [for Game 3] or it was simply coming off the dangerous loss and dropping momentum. All of the issues that would go flawed went flawed for us.”
IN 2016, THE WNBA went away from splitting the conferences for the playoffs and as an alternative seeded the highest eight groups by report, with the primary two rounds being single-elimination video games. New York misplaced within the second spherical in 2016 and 2017. However rumblings concerning the franchise’s future had began even earlier than then.
Kiah Stokes, Liberty middle, 2015-21: “My rookie 12 months after being drafted by the Liberty (2015), I heard folks saying, ‘If we do not do nicely, they will shut this franchise.’ It was simply whisperings, but it surely was nonetheless type of a shock. I imply, that is New York.”
In November 2017, proprietor James Dolan introduced he needed to promote the Liberty, which he and his household had owned because the WNBA launched. Laimbeer left to teach Las Vegas, which had moved from San Antonio.
In the course of the 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons, the Liberty have been displaced from the Backyard whereas it was being renovated, and performed on the Prudential Middle in Newark, New Jersey. Then, whereas ready for brand new possession, the Liberty have been exiled in 2018 and 2019 to the Westchester County Middle, which was 90 years previous and held fewer than 3,000 followers. The Liberty went from averaging practically 10,000 followers per house recreation in 2017 to 2,239 in 2019. Stewart, then a visiting participant with the Seattle Storm in 2018, known as it “a quiet ambiance, bizarre for a basketball recreation.”
Lobo: “The ‘forgotten’ years. I by no means noticed a recreation in Westchester. It was like, ‘What the heck is happening with this franchise?’ I may keep in mind when the Liberty have been frequently getting 12,000 to fifteen,000 folks a recreation and town actually, actually cared.”
Courtney Vandersloot, Liberty guard, 2023-present; then with the Sky: “We have been considering, That is insane. That is s—ty, to be very frank. I understood that, hopefully, it was non permanent.”
Breanna Stewart, Liberty ahead, 2023-present: “My recollections of that place have been, ‘Why do now we have to go up three flights of stairs to get to the locker room?’ Pregame and likewise halftime and likewise postgame.”
Brondello, then coach of Phoenix: “I used to be carrying excessive heels, and I used to be like, ‘Simply depart my flip-flops on the backside of the steps. I am not doing that in heels.'”
Katie Smith, now a Lynx assistant, was a Liberty assistant from 2014 to 2017, after which head coach for the Westchester seasons. The gamers lived close to the Westchester Middle in 2018 however in Brooklyn in 2019, which introduced its personal logistical challenges.
Katie Smith, Liberty head coach, 2018-19: “The commute, all of the driving … simply dealing with enterprise. Not ultimate, however everyone understood the place we have been at that second [as a franchise.]”
The Liberty’s trajectory modified dramatically in January 2019 when the homeowners of the Brooklyn Nets, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, purchased the group and vowed to improve the whole lot concerning the franchise.
Adam Silver, NBA commissioner: “Joe and Clara Tsai embraced the chance to put money into ladies’s basketball in New York Metropolis and jumped in with huge enthusiasm and keenness. The outcomes communicate for themselves each when it comes to the gifted rosters they’ve assembled and their dedication to enjoying all house video games on the Barclays Middle.”
Clara Wu Tsai, Liberty proprietor, 2019-present: “We noticed the enterprise potential of an expert ladies’s basketball group, particularly one in New York Metropolis. There was already a passionate Liberty fan base originating from the early days of the league. We believed we may construct a championship-caliber group that will deliver again the unique supporters and entice new, passionate followers.”
The Liberty obtained new possession, a brand new normal supervisor (Jonathan Kolb), a brand new coach (Walt Hopkins) and the No. 1 decide within the 2020 draft (Ionescu).
However issues did not flip round in a single day. The 2020 season within the COVID-19 “bubble” in Florida noticed New York hit all-time low, as Ionescu suffered a season-ending ankle damage in her third recreation and the Liberty completed 2-20.
That’s the fewest victories for a group in WNBA historical past, and it’s the second-worst profitable share behind Tulsa’s 3-31 season in 2011.
Sabrina Ionescu. Liberty guard, 2020-present: “It was the expectation and the load of the world being a 1 decide. Trying again, it actually formed me into who I’m. However throughout that point, it was robust. I did not even watch a number of the video games. I attempted to show the TV off and hope that the season would go by faster so I did not must really feel like I used to be lacking out on a lot.”
Ionescu is the one participant from 2020 nonetheless with the Liberty. That was Stokes’ final full season in New York; she was waived halfway by means of 2021 and picked up by Las Vegas, the place she has gained two titles.
Stokes: “I keep in mind speaking to Jonathan Kolb, and particularly after we drafted Sab, he had all this stuff he needed to perform and gamers he needed to deliver to New York. To see him full that roster a couple of years later, I am actually impressed. It is unlucky they needed to ship everybody out and principally usher in a brand new roster. However it’s important to do what’s finest for the group.”
With Ionescu again in 2021, the Liberty went 12-20 and misplaced within the first spherical of the playoffs. On Dec. 6, 2021, Hopkins was let go by the Liberty and Phoenix parted with Brondello, inside a couple of hours of one another.
Brondello: “I might identified I used to be leaving Phoenix earlier than that, and had heard by means of the grapevine New York may be open. I assumed, ‘That is the job I need — within the largest metropolis, with a younger group and actually nice possession.'”
Issues absolutely got here collectively earlier than the 2023 season in essentially the most explosive free company in league historical past. Stewart and Vandersloot signed with the Liberty, and Jones requested for a commerce to New York, becoming a member of Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton to kind essentially the most gifted beginning 5 the Liberty has ever had. New York now has gone 32-8 in back-to-back seasons and is in its second WNBA Finals in a row.
Jonathan Kolb, Liberty GM, 2019-present: “You set collectively what you’ll be able to whereas understanding a distinct set [of circumstances] will current themselves sooner or later. We met with Stewie a 12 months prior, when she was an unrestricted free agent. It did not work out at the moment, however we preserved cap flexibility within the occasion that we might have one other swing to take, which thankfully we did.”
Ionescu: “I really feel like I have been capable of assist do right here type of what I did in school at Oregon: turning a group round and constructing it again from the bottom up.”
Jonquel Jones, Liberty ahead, 2023-present: “With the Liberty, I really feel like I’ve discovered so much about myself. I’ve actually been examined when it comes to how a lot are you keen to sacrifice for a championship?”
By means of practically three a long time, the Liberty have chased the championship dream. It is Barclays and Brooklyn now, not Madison Sq. Backyard and Manhattan. Some completely different celebrities sit courtside lately, reminiscent of Spike Lee, Alicia Keys and Jason Sudeikis. However the spirit of the followers and the Liberty’s pursuit stay.
Hammon, Aces coach, 2022-present: “As a lot as I need to beat them after we play them, it is essential for the league that New York do nicely. It simply is. It is an enormous market, and they should put a fantastic product on the ground. Which they’re.”
Lobo: “Being at a Liberty recreation now, I am reminded, ‘That is what it felt like within the early days on the Backyard.’ That is the way it feels now in Brooklyn. You by no means know what may occur. However this actually might be their 12 months.”
It will not be simple. With the Liberty, it by no means is. After Recreation 1’s intestine punch, Vandersloot was blunt.
Vandersloot: “There is no means round it: We come into the locker room, and we really feel prefer it was a missed alternative for us. That hurts. Very first thing I say in there may be, ‘Now we have to discover a approach to transfer on from this. We nonetheless have a fantastic alternative in entrance of us.'”