There was a scissor lift on Dean Street near the entrance to where the garage and the loading dock are located within Barclays Center. A couple of people were up high on the lift, removing the player portrait on the top left corner of the giant poster that features the 2026 New York Liberty roster dressed in their throwback uniforms.
The workers were removing Betnijah Laney-Hamilton‘s poster, the player who starred in the early season promotional video when the throwback jerseys were first introduced to the world in late April during training camp.
Laney-Hamilton was waived from the roster officially on late Thursday afternoon, following the expectation that she would be traded leading up to the deadline on August 2. The last game she played in for the Liberty was over a month ago when she was ejected after inadvertently throwing a shoe on the court. She was trying to get her now former teammate and longtime friend Jonquel Jones the shoe that she lost on the floor and then was assessed her second technical of the game, which led to the ejection.
Ever since that game on July 12, Laney-Hamilton racked up DNP after DNP, and French Rookie Marine Fauthoux, who was signed to a multi-year deal after she played on a developmental contract in a corresponding move to Laney-Hamilton’s departure, played key minutes in her place.
Laney-Hamilton struggled to find her rhythm and confidence during moments when her basketball mind was very much there but her body had trouble moving in the way she wanted it to.
Since she was waived, Liberty fans have been expressing their grief over Laney-Hamilton leaving a team where she helped lay the foundation. General Manager Jonathan Kolb had a similar tenor in his official statement when it came to saying goodbye to his first ever major free agency signing.
“While this decision is incredibly difficult, we believe this will give [Laney-Hamilton] the best opportunity to pursue a larger basketball role,” Kolb said in the team’s press release. “We wish her nothing but success moving forward, and she’ll always be a member of the Liberty family. As a key contributor to the first championship in franchise history, [Laney-Hamilton’s] legacy with the Liberty is forever cemented.”
Head coach Chris DeMarco, who has been the team’s coach for just over 30 games, was asked clarifying questions during a team practice about what happened throughout the past many months since training camp, especially when Laney-Hamilton told reporters multiple times about a lack of communication between her and DeMarco.
He noted that at “the start of the season,” Laney-Hamilton had expressed that if there “were other opportunities, that she wanted to look at those,” confirming an early desire to be traded.
“And I think it came to the point where, just as a team, we all understood what this is and what we were trying to accomplish,” he said. “And for her was just trying to find her the right place where she can succeed and feel good, and hopefully that happens. We have confidence that will happen.”
And it did. On Saturday afternoon, the Washington Mystics officially claimed Laney-Hamilton off waivers, a team that’s just less than two hours by car from Laney-Hamilton’s hometown Smyrna, Delaware.
DeMarco spoke at length much more about why the 2026 season was so difficult for Laney-Hamilton, providing much more candor and sympathy than he had previously for her situation.
“But the biggest thing is just coming off a major injury, and that’s always hard, taking the time off,” he said. “I don’t think it’s talked about enough how hard it is for players and that year off and trying to rehab, same gym, same routine. A lot goes into it. It’s hard mentally sometimes too, and I’m not going to speak for [Laney-Hamilton], this is just my experience working with athletes that have come off of ACLs, achilles, other injuries.
“It’s very taxing. It’s just not the same. Putting in the work, it’s not like you’re going to individual drills. It’s not like you’re working with your teammates, all that stuff. So that’s hard right away. So then her trying to work back. We started her at the beginning of the season, she played well. She took some time away from personal reasons. Got back, coming off the bench a little bit, and then she had the injection in the knee. So some games off, and then there’s a third time, we played her in the rotation for a few games, and then she’s out of rotation. So it’s just a tough, tough year all around for her.”
Amid how difficult and unceremonious the 2026 season was for Laney-Hamilton, both Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart expressed how bittersweet the situation was both personally for the front court duo. It’s been well-documented how close Jones and Laney-Hamilton are, with Jones saying that Laney-Hamilton is “her sister.” Stewart explained that her personal message to Laney-Hamilton, someone she has known since they were teenagers at USA Basketball on the U-16 team, was that their relationship “goes beyond the Liberty” and that she will “always be in her corner.”
Jones and Stewart made it clear that what happened at the end shouldn’t define the legacy that Laney-Hamilton leaves in New York.
“I think the fans will remember her as a gritty player, someone that played with with a lot of heart, someone that gave her all every time she stepped on the court,” Jones said. “I think she just embodied that toughness of what the city represents and that resiliency.”
Stewart called [Laney-Hamilton] “so New York.”
“People walking around New York with Timbs,” Stewart said. “Like that, you know what I mean? That’s like not to say she’s walking around with Timbs, but that toughness, that grit, that type of thing.”
The question remains who will pick up that slack? Who has that motor and toughness that defines what it means to play for the franchise?
Why the Liberty signed Fathoux to a multi-year deal
The Liberty hope that that energy will be in some way, shape or form carried on by 25-year-old Fauthoux. When Fauthoux has been asked about her game, how she plays and just her general approach, her answers mostly revolve around how winning is her number one priority.
DeMarco noted how hard she plays when she’s on the floor, and how there are so many little decisions that she makes that impact winning on a high level. This isn’t a one-to-one comparison because Fauthoux is a point guard who can shoot rather than a combo-wing, but there are some similarities about her approach Laney-Hamilton’s.
DeMarco painted the picture of how observers can’t just be watching games casually at a bar to understand Fauthoux’s impact on games. “You can’t be at a bar hanging out and the game’s going on and be like, ‘yeah, Fauthoux is a good player,'” he said. “You have to actually watch the game and watch like the little things that she does. She’s on defense. She’s in a shell. She’s early when they hit the pocket. Offensively, she sets somebody up in pick-and-roll, defense [is] out of position. She races the ball. Two people have to come over. She finds shooters.”
The Liberty’s decision to invest in the young guard for the present and the future reveals yet another strategic approach that Kolb is taking.
If he were to let Fauthoux just finish out the season in New York without an extension, there might have been an opportunity for her to demand a bit more than her applicable minimum. Instead of allowing what happened to the Valkyries with Janelle Salaün‘s contract that hiked by a 656.67% increase, Kolb decided to get ahead of that.
Signing Fauthoux to a multi-year deal allows the Liberty cap flexibility in the future.
But, back to the now. Fauthoux in her 160 total minutes played has been affective. What stands out most is how when she plays with Sabrina Ionescu on the floor, the team has a 3.22 net rating and a 112.15 offensive rating, two numbers incredibly close to the team’s overall net and offensive ratings.
Fauthoux’s story is one that Liberty fans appreciate — it’s another story of resilience. The 2021 draftee began the season rehabbing from an ACL tear on her original developmental contract that she endured last June. She played in her first official organized basketball game since the injury on June 6.
The entire experience has shaped her career including the start to one in the best professional league in the world.
“I think things happen for a reason sometimes,” she said. “And because of my injury, I know my body better, and I know like I’m more professional. I’m stronger in my head, in my body, so it’s helps me a lot to play now.”
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