How much better can the New York Liberty get? — Brandi Poole talks Atlanta Dream

I’ve seen Bill Laimbeer fired as head coach, only to have a large number of candidates turn the Liberty down, leading to the Liberty rehiring Bill Laimbeer two months later.

I’ve been told cheerfully by the then-president of the WNBA, Lisa Borders, that Westchester County Center is just like Cameron Indoor. (Would Sylvia Fowles and Maya Moore have had to take turns showering at Cameron? I guess we’ll never know.)

I’ve been told that Shavonte Zellous, Brittany Boyd and Shoni Schimmel will change the trajectory of the franchise, each one marketed as an attempt to get some attention for the franchise during one offseason or another.

All of which is to say, at a moment when Ellie the Elephant has a higher favorability rating than any candidate for the Mayor of New York, a majority of the Liberty’s starting lineup showed up at the Met Gala, the team is defending a title and packing Barclays Center, it feels almost greedy for Liberty fans to ask: can things get better?

But essentially, that is not just the question I posed on their behalf to Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb this past weekend. It serves as the entire conceit of the franchise’s approach as well.

“I think what we all can be cognizant of is, because we won last year, it doesn’t mean we have an advantage,” Kolb said during a media event at Barclays Center. “It doesn’t mean we’re starting on third base and we just run home, right? This is a new journey for us, and with that new journey, continuity is a positive. And I think continuity plays out at the front end of the season. That’s where we can kind of hit the ground running a little bit.

“But I think we’ve got in pros like [Natasha Cloud] and [Marine Johannès], that over the course of the season, you’ll see them fit in and settle in. As I said, we want to hit our stride come the end of the regular season. So… in terms of what we want to improve upon, is just build upon what we established last year.”

The Liberty have some significant changes, more than it might appear at first, considering the luxury of returning Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu as the team’s superstar core. Of the top seven minute-earners on last year’s team, New York will be without Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, whose knee injury will cost her the 2025 season, Kolb confirmed Saturday, along with Kayla Thornton, selected in the expansion draft by the Golden State Valkyries, and Courtney Vandersloot, who is now back in Chicago with the Sky.

But just as the previous version of the Liberty roster was a Noah’s Ark of players, Kolb has constructed a 2025 team that appears to include ready answers for each of these losses.

Kennedy Burke played the role of Kayla Thornton understudy at times last season, and should slide seamlessly into the lead, particularly on the defensive end. She and Rebekah Gardner, shrewdly acquired at a time the Liberty would retain her rights into 2025, offer much of the defensive versatility that Laney-Hamilton and Thornton did a season ago.

And in the backcourt, Vandersloot actually has two replacements, and it can be argued at this point in their respective careers that each of them — Cloud as a veteran point guard and voice in the locker room who can allow Ionescu to operate off the ball, Johannès as a shooter off the bench — is a better version of the production Vandersloot provided in those realms in 2024. Cloud has run an assist percentage in the mid-30s throughout the 2020s, ahead of Vandersloot’s 33.1% in 2024. And Johannès is a career 39.5% shooter from deep, while Vandersloot shot just 26.4%.

A brief disclaimer — Courtney Vandersloot is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, handles the demotion to the bench like a champion, and was a vital part of the Liberty in 2024. But she also turned 36 in February. So those numbers weren’t likely to go up in 2025.

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All of this augurs well for an offense that is likelier to run faster, with greater emphasis on the most efficient shots, than a 2024 team which set a WNBA record for the most attempts at the rim or beyond the arc, combined, in league history. Moreover, the Liberty might need to improve on that front simply to stay in place, between the returning cast in Minnesota, the additional talent (and continuity for Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell) in Indiana and a retooled Las Vegas Aces team with Jewell Loyd.

More interesting still is the way the Los Angeles Sparks and Atlanta Dream focused on this element of the Liberty championship puzzle — the offensive efficiency — by hiring Lynne Roberts and Karl Smesko, respectively, whose team shot charts at Utah and FGCU put even the balance of shots New York attempted in 2024 to shame. (Different to do it in college, of course.)

Sonia Raman is a hiring nod to this effort on the coaching staff, and in this pursuit, too, simply replicating 2024 isn’t the goal. Not when Brittney Griner is taking and making multiple threes in Atlanta exhibition games.

“I mean, it’s here. You’re going to see a lot of pace, a lot of space,” Kolb said. “You hear that a lot around the league, it’s here, and I think it’s going to create variability game to game, because you have teams that are taking taking more frees and trying to prioritize spacing… And to answer your question about us, yes, we want more. And so we want to lean to that. We do not want to stay the same. I think we’ve got excellent downhill pressure this year that’s going to really open things up for us. I think the potential of a Marine with Leo in space is going to put teams in decision-making mode, and we want to get teams to get into rotation, and so I’m looking forward to seeing how that plays out on the court.”

Another area the Liberty can get better, for sure: more Leo Fiebich. The Liberty finished 13-2 in her 15 regular season starts. And she started every game in the playoffs as well. She is a two-way mismatch on par with Stewart or Jones, and she’ll enter the season on a plan to more closely approximate her minutes from the end of 2024 than the beginning. (And the Liberty have her under team control in 2026, too! What a heist.)

Truly, there’s not a team in this league who can control much of what happens after the 2025 season, though there is a correlation between the smartest front offices and the ones who have collected the rights to international talent ahead of the paradigm-upending offseason to come. But the Liberty, on the heels of its first championship season, appear to have done something remarkable: on paper, anyway, they look even better.

This week in women’s basketball

Maya Goldberg-Safir, a favorite of mine, has the story of Anna Johnson.

Did you know that, prior to her time with the Indiana Fever, Caitlin Clark played at Iowa?

Every WNBA team gets a preview at The Next, because every WNBA team has a beat reporter at The Next!

I think Deja Kelly can play in this league. Harmoni Turner, too.

This was terrific from Kendra Andrews on the success and questions for Unrivaled.

Don’t be surprised if this is Napheesa Collier’s MVP season.

Sabreena, Ben and Zena (congrats, Zena, on the TV studio gig!) talk how competitive the Valkyries can be this season.

Please direct all your 2028 Olympic team roster complaints to Sue Bird.

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Five at The IX: Brandi Poole, Atlanta Dream

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