NEW YORK — It’s no surprise that, just over 30 hours before the New York Liberty were set to tipoff their first game of the 2026 season, Breanna Stewart had something to say. She addressed her teammates and the coaching staff at the end of the team’s practice on Thursday afternoon to lay down what she believed needed to be top of mind going into the team’s first official game of the regular season.
Stewart described how she and her team were going to have a new opportunity to redeem themselves and course correct the story around the franchise after a disappointing 2025 season.
“She just has an aura about her that draws people in,” head coach Chris DeMarco said about Stewart pregame on Friday night. “I think she’s a phenomenal leader, and you just see the winning plays over and over again.”
Those winning plays for Stewart came in the form of her 31 point, 10 rebound, 3 block and 2 assist performance in the Liberty’s 106-75 rout of the Connecticut Sun. In an evening that included Stewart breaking a bunch more records, including becoming the second-fastest player in league history to score 6,000 career points and passing Lauren Jackson for 15th on the WNBA’s all-time scoring list with 6,008 points, that wasn’t what meant most.
What Stewart really cared about was that she and her team executed the principles of her post-practice sermon from Thursday.
“We wanted to punch first,” she said reflecting on the win. “I think that, knowing that this is a season opener, home opener. Lot of different things, lot of different people here, some familiar people here, but this is us like turning the page and turning the chapter a little bit and focusing on what we have now. Making sure that we start strong the season.”
The Liberty’s home opener was about as Stewart said “turning the page,” but in order to do that, the mind has to be informed by the past. Turning the page and starting anew can be an emotional experience. Combining memories while also staying in the present isn’t easy. This will be something that the Liberty will be reconciling with all season long during the WNBA’s 30th season.
Everything around Barclays Center on Friday night was familiar, but also new. Rally towels that had the design of the Liberty’s new court origins jersey, that the team wore on Friday night, lay draped on each seat. Music from the late 1990s blasted on the speakers, including “Party Up” by DMX. The team trotted out in warm up jackets that were a tribute to what they looked like back in 1997: short sleeve looking polos rather than more modern day long sleeve athletic jackets.
The team’s introductory video had the team grooving in the court origins jerseys with both of the franchise’s mascots (more on that later) with Fresh Prince of Bel Air or All-That-style title cards for each player.
All of the fonts that were used in that video — and even on the jumbotron, to list simple stats — were typed out in 90s style block letters. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton closed out the video holding a 1990s pager that had one of the team’s slogans “light it up,” written on the small screen.
It’s a unique juxtaposition, which Stewart also acknowledged by calling the retro theme of the night “sick” to the crowd of 17,615 people before tipoff.
Her directive of turning the page had traces throughout the evening as her teammates, current and former, new and old, embraced this philosophy.
Right at the beginning of the second quarter, after the Liberty began the first outscoring the Sun 36-16, the first of those turning-the-page moments happened, but it was for a player on the other side.
A video played of some of Kennedy Burke‘s best highlights, smiles, and dance moves as Barclays Center welcomed her back. Burke, who left New York to play in Connecticut and became the first Latina million dollar player, told reporters on Friday morning that she was anticipating what this was all going to feel like being back in New York in front of the Liberty’s fan base.
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She noted that she didn’t want to get emotional, but that plan didn’t win out. After the video played on the jumbotron, she was shown on the Sun bench with tears in her eyes as she got up from her seat and held up her hands in a heart gesturing the fans. It wasn’t surprising that she got a louder applause from the Barclays Center crowd than league icon Brittney Griner did during the Sun’s team introductions. That moment capped off Burke’s time to officially turn the page, and she did with a heavy heart.
Longtime Liberty fans were in their feelings when another familiar face made her return. Maddie the dog, the team’s first mascot before Ellie the Elephant, was introduced like a celebrity sitting in celebrity row. What ensued after her introduction was Maddie jumping on each of the Liberty letters, another old tradition from the franchise’s earlier years.
Ellie almost fainted in awe of her cousin Maddie. The dog was introduced by Jason Negron, the team’s former in-arena host from days when the franchise was owned by the Madison Square Garden company.
After Maddie was introduced in the same way that other celebrities — like actor Jeffrey Wright and comedian Matt Rogers were — Maddie the dog resumed her mascot duties in her own way, walking around the arena to greet fans with Ellie.
The elephant had her moment during halftime, when she paid a tribute to Whitney Houston that included a black bob wig and multiple costume changes. Houston performed the national anthem at the WNBA All-Star game in 1999 when the game was held at Madison Square Garden. This was Ellie and her team paying an intentional tribute to the pop cultural history of the WNBA.
Another familiar face in Betnijah Laney-Hamilton played in her first official WNBA game since she and the Liberty won the title back in October of 2024. This had been a long time coming for Laney-Hamilton, who sat out the 2025 season due to a knee injury. She told reporters pregame that when she woke up on Friday morning, she prayed to get her mind right and ready to take the floor that evening.
While her play opened with some hesitancy, her big moment came at the beginning of the second quarter when she drove on rookie Gianna Kneepkens, which sent the rookie to the ground. Laney-Hamilton admitted post game that she wasn’t thinking about intentionally causing an ankle-breaking moment for the rookie, but more was trying to find her rhythm in the flow of the Liberty’s offense.
“I was like oh my god,” Jonquel Jones said about the move. “I think I was on the court and was just in awe of the move. I told her, I was like, ‘if you didn’t make that shot, I’d have been mad at you, because that layup was wide open.'”
While Laney-Hamilton was a bit coy about her ankle-breaking welcome moment for the rookie, she opened up about what truly being back on the floor meant for her. “I’m just thankful,” she said. “I’m just grateful that I was able to get back out there, that I’m back healthy. You know, it’s been a long time coming. So it’s nice to have that out the way.”
Laney-Hamilton too can now turn the page and focus on continuing to build on her first moments of WNBA action in 565 days, where she scored 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting with four assists and two rebounds.
In addition to Laney-Hamilton, Marine Johannes also had a turning-of-the-page type moment on the court. With Sabrina Ionescu out with her rolled left ankle, Johannes joined the starting lineup and was the team’s second leading scorer behind Stewart. She scored 17 points, had five rebounds, three assists and hit five threes in the Liberty’s Friday night win.
Back in 2025, Johannes was benched toward the end of the season in favor of Rebekah Gardner; the fact that she played 28 minutes to begin her 2026 season is significant. Johannes, one of the most creative and entertaining players to watch in the league, is often her own worst critic and when she makes a bold decision that doesn’t go her way, she gets frustrated and melancholy.
When she was discussing her performance during the postgame presser, she acknowledged that some of the decisions she made to shoot the ball weren’t the best. Stewart stopped Johannes in her tracks and said: “but you made five threes.” And head coach DeMarco then turned to her and said: “shoot the ball.”
Both Stewart and DeMarco in their support of her were also signaling to Johannes that she too had to turn the page. “That’s it,” Johannes said in response. Turn that page.
And then there was the page-turning story that hardship player Julie Vanloo brought to New York on Friday night. The veteran point guard was waived by the Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday.
Since Ionescu, Rebecca Allen and Satou Sabally were all out in addition to Leonie Fiebich and Raquel Carrera still competing still in the Spanish league playoffs, the Liberty had just seven available players to play for their home opener until Vanloo and Aubrey Griffin joined the team Friday morning on hardship contracts.
Vanloo was considering just going home to Belgium instead of trying to stick with the WNBA. She had just played in a long overseas season for Turkish club Mersin and also came off a mid-season injury that kept her out of games for a couple of months until early March.
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But she told reporters that her mother encouraged her not to be a quitter, and after she finished her first game with the Liberty, where she almost registered a triple-double, she was greeted to seven voice memos from her mom expressing how proud she was of her daughter.
“It’s just all about the right fit, the right confidence and the freedom that I get to play, and I totally felt that today,” she said postgame about her performance that netted out to 12 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds in 22 minutes of play off the bench. “And I just said, I need to leave my backpack from like, the pain and the doubts and all that in LA or wherever it is, and I need to come here without anything, and that’s what I did. And I’m incredibly proud of myself.”
While Vanloo wasn’t yet present for Stewart’s Thursday afternoon message, the guard embodied the sentiment, just like the rest of the Liberty’s roster on Friday night.
Stewart’s goals for herself and her team on opening night also represented a type of telepathy she has with what the New York fans crave and expect from the team that they ride or die for.
Hours before tipoff, a fan who was wearing the new Mitchell & Ness White Court Origins Rebecca Lobo jersey was sitting on a park bench behind the Barclays Center Subway entrance. She uttered these words:
“I’ve been waiting for this since the end of last year, when we didn’t make it,” the fan said in reference to the team losing to the Phoenix Mercury in the first round of the playoffs.
Stewart concurred, and wanted to make sure her team was on the same page. And on Friday night, they were.
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