NY Liberty two current star players have finally been disowned automatically by signing and moving to play for another team violently.
NEW YORK Though New York City is renowned for its relentless speed, one of the pivotal moments of the New York Liberty’s historic free agency transpired 5,000 miles away, over the course of a two-hour boat voyage during which nobody was rushing.
Late in January, WNBA player Breanna Stewart, Liberty co-owner and co-governor Clara Wu Tsai, and Stewart’s wife, Marta Xargay Casademont, along with their 21-month-old daughter, Ruby, took a morning boat ride across the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey. Wu Tsai, general manager Jonathan Kolb, assistant general manager Ohemaa Nyanin, and coach Sandy Brondello were among the delegation from the Liberty who traveled to Istanbul in an attempt to court unrestricted free agent Stewart. Stewart was in competition with the Turkish team Fenerbahce during the WNBA summer. After multiple encounters with the exWu Tsai, Stewart, and her family were left together when MVP and the other members of the Liberty contingent departed the nation.
“When you have that amount of time,” Wu Tsai remarked, “you can pretty much just talk about anything.” They discussed the league, the nearby sites, and even their pasts during their boat voyage. After bringing toys and snacks, the group played with Ruby.
Wu Tsai told ESPN, “I’m invested in her and her family, and she needs to be happy.” “For this to succeed, everything in New York must turn out well for her family. Along with getting to know Marta and Ruby personally, it was also getting to know Stewie, and of course I got to see an amazing, wonderful “The way that she came all the way to Istanbul, really getting to know my family, Marta and Ruby, and taking us on an experience through the Bosphorus, she knows what hits close to home,” Stewart stated. “And she made it a point for it to be important for her too.”
After just one week, Stewart called Wu Tsai to announce that she would be signing with the Liberty in the biggest free agency move in league history. That, along with the trade for Jonquel Jones by New York two and a half weeks prior and the signing of Courtney Vandersloot, signaled the realization of a dream.
The Liberty are a real championship contender for the first time in a long time, and they want to bring basketball to the city for the first time.
Kolb declared, “It’s a pillar original franchise.” “I’m really tired of the continuation of that sentence being ‘but the only one that hasn’t won a championship.'”
The WNBA is at a turning moment amid a surge in women’s basketball viewership (2022 saw an average of 412,000 viewers for 49 games, up 22 percent from 2021), a new TV rights agreement approaching, and constant calls for expansion. The Liberty regard New York, a city that receives more attention than any other, as the ideal location to achieve their goals of setting the bar for what franchises can accomplish both on and off the court by winning championships and giving the player experience top priority.
..
“I think everybody realizes the momentum and power that we have here and making sure that we’re all a part of something bigger,” Stewart said. “Obviously winning a championship, but something more than that.”
New York? A minute has passed.
Australian Brondello, who played for the Detroit Shock when she first joined the league in 1998, didn’t know why Madison Square Garden was so unique. But after she had a personal experience with it, it quickly became one of her favorite settings. The Liberty fans were usually large and enthusiastic, particularly when Brondello was traded to New York’s rival team, the Miami Sol. She recollects that rock star Joan Jett stabbed a voodoo doll courtside with the intention of killing the opponent of the Liberty.
“Beating New York was everyone’s goal, and I Â guess,” Brondello remarked. “Back then, too.”
In the end, languishing took the place of the Liberty’s initial momentum and popularity. Between 1997 and 2002, New York made four trips to the Finals; they haven’t returned since. As owner James Dolan pursued selling the team, games were moved to the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, in 2018 and 2019. This was a particularly symbolic blow, as the team had spent the majority of its existence calling the World’s Most Famous Arena home.
