Greetings and welcome to Basketball Insider, presented by The BIG EAST Conference. I am joining you a little late tonight — college night took precedent, and I cannot stress enough to you how much you should never let your children grow up. But if the stakes seemed high as we discussed the common app and the SATs, imagine the pressure in New York, where the Liberty have created a self-fulfilling prophecy of expectations.
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To review, briefly: the franchise brought together Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones to join forces with Sabrina Ionescu, their 2020 top overall pick, and vaulted into the league’s elite immediately. A WNBA Finals appearance in 2023 and a long-sought championship followed in 2024.
But in 2025, injuries limited the trio to just 15 games and 234 total minutes on the court together. Naturally, despite the 21.2 net rating the trio posted, that wasn’t nearly enough of a total playing time to land New York its expected top-2 seed, and the Liberty, as a five seed, fell to Phoenix in the first round.
This was hardly the only unfortunate event New York navigated last season — a disconnect between the front office and head coach Sandy Brondello led to a change in coaching following the season, while it can be argued the 2025 season was lost the moment Betnijah Laney-Hamilton‘s injury sidelined her for the entire campaign.
But as I posited to general manager Jonathan Kolb, despite all of this, the Liberty still finished… with a five seed, a playoff appearance, and came within a few possessions of upsetting the Mercury and advancing to the WNBA semifinals. It’s hard to see any other team, with the possible exception of the Las Vegas Aces, who has a higher floor than the Liberty.
“In terms of the floor last year, maybe,” Kolb said when we spoke with him Sunday at Liberty Media Appreciation Day. “I think it’s a talented group, but I do think that it has a very high ceiling, and we’re really excited about reaching that this year.”
His answer is telling. This is not a franchise spending time wondering what the worst-case scenario is. They are building for the best-case, and it is fair to wonder how safe any jobs will be if they fail to reach it.
Kolb, it must be said, has built a team capable of reaching the apex of the league. The aforementioned trio are back, and critically, they committed early, allowing Kolb to know who he was building around during a free agency period that ran, start to finish, as long as Final Jeopardy.
Laney-Hamilton returns, along with Marine Johannes and Rebecca Allen, all entirely familiar with the Liberty experience. Adding a player like Satou Sabally ensures a fourth player capable of creating mismatches merely by stepping onto the floor. Angel Reese probably means more to Atlanta than Sabally does to New York, but it is hard to say which franchise added the best player in this year’s truncated offseason.
Lineups featuring, for instance, Jones, Stewart, Sabally, Leo Fiebich and Sabrina Ionescu will force opponents to deal with a quartet 6’4 or taller, all capable of defending and scoring, creating their own shot, augmented by one of the finest shooters/passers (and a vastly improved defender) in Ionescu running the show.
It is also only one game, but Han Xu is back, and looks to be almost a different body type than when we last saw her stateside. Also: she might have also grown even taller? The WNBA teams who have a ready answer for her at 6’11 and capable of stretching the floor are exceeding limited.
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It all has the makings of that dreaded superteam label, though in the WNBA that guarantees nothing. Not when Las Vegas retained its core, Atlanta and Indiana clearly improved, and Cheryl Reeve and the Lynx will get Napheesa Collier back at some point this season. Nothing comes easy in the WNBA.
Tasked with the job of reaching expectations is newcomer Chris DeMarco and his talented staff. It says here he’s employing multiple future head coaches in this league, Andrew Wade, Courtney Paris and Addi Walters at the minimum.
But Kolb has been keen to remind everyone that this takes time. It isn’t an idle thought, nor does a fast start guarantee anything. Just ask the 9-0 2025 New York Liberty, who, in Kolb’s words, “won May” last year.
The Tsai-era Liberty do not accept mediocrity as an outcome in any element of what they do, with an attitude that does cause some enmity from others around the sport. Depending on who you’re asking, it is either jealousy or a real-time accounting of their trophy case, which still has, for all the star power and the best efforts of Ellie, a single championship parade to show for it.
In theory, the franchise should be in position to maintain its current position for some time to come. The Big Three are signed for the next three years, Sabally for two. Kolb continues to stockpile international talent as well, some of whom will play key roles on this season’s roster. The man whose job it used to be to tell every team, via an Excel spreadsheet, how much cap room they had each evening at 5 PM knows his way around WNBA CBA rules.
But if the Liberty should fall short of expectations, which could mean even another loss in the WNBA Finals, just how much patience will Joe and Clara Wu Tsai have for this version of the Liberty? The implicit pressure is palpable in every answer from Kolb and DeMarco alike.
Those of us who have covered the WNBA dating back to times when few franchises took operations seriously welcome the ambition, which is increasingly paired with competence around the league that is expanding the gap between the well-run teams and the, let’s just say less well-run teams like never before.
But in New York, where the ambition might be most acute, the pressure that abuts such expectations mean that there is precious little room for error. Whatever happens to the 2026 New York Liberty, it will be operatic. Time will tell if that means Marriage of Figaro or Tosca.
This week in women’s basketball
If you aren’t reading Marisa Ingemi’s Valkyries Beat yet, what are you doing with your life?
Good stuff here from old friend Tyler Byrum and Jenn Hatfield.
Fun post-portal top 25 from Sabreena Merchant.
Five at The IX: Jonathan Kolb
Mondays: Soccer
By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer
Tuesdays: Tennis
By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer
Wednesdays: Basketball
By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports
Thursdays: Golf
By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports
Fridays: Hockey
By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden
Saturdays: Gymnastics
By: Jessica Taylor Price, @jesstaylorprice, Freelance Writer
