NEW YORK — The doors were wide open to the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center and Satou Sabally, the New York Liberty’s newest player, didn’t know what was going on.
She heard noise, but didn’t realize it until she saw through the entrance. She put both of her hands to her face. It could have been shock. It could have been elation. It was probably a bit of both.
Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” was blasting as Sabally ran through a tunnel created by the group of students from Uncommon Excellence Girls Charter Middle School and the staff of the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center. The welcoming committee made signs for Sabally that featured pictures of her, photos of unicorns — a reference to her nickname “The Unicorn” — and phrases like “Welcome Satou” and “Go Girl”.
It was a day of celebration for the 6’4 forward as she smiled and walked through a “spirit tunnel“, similar to the one put together for new head coach Chris DeMarco when he was introduced to the community and the media back in December.
Formerly a member of the Phoenix Mercury, Sabally agreed to come to New York in free agency around a week ago, and this was her first appearance as a member of the Liberty. While the ESPN report with the initial decision acknowledged that Sabally wanted to be a part of a “title-contending team” with an established culture in New York, Sabally literally was in the WNBA Finals this past October when the Mercury beat the Liberty in the first round of the playoffs on the road to get there.
She beat the Liberty, but joined them anyway. That isn’t typically what players do once they reach the finals and come up short. That’s often a selling point to get them to return.
But for Sabally, this moment was a culmination of the time she had to think about what she wanted the next step of her career to look like. Ever since sustaining a concussion during Game 3 of the 2025 WNBA Finals, Sabally hasn’t played basketball. She missed the 2026 Unrivaled season due to lingering symptoms. She has since been cleared to play, but had a lot of time to reflect.
“I just truly feel like I wanted to come here … to fuse everything together in my life,” she told a group of reporters on Friday. “Because New York is just so big, like and I am big, and I think it’s the perfect match. So it fits with the last months that I’ve just been processing everything in my life.”
Once Sabally clopped through the tunnel, she was immediately surrounded by the girls.
“I’m Satou, thanks for having me.” Sabally said to the girls. “You all play basketball?”
The group gave Sabally a resounding “no,” but she understood the task at hand anyway. She clearly had experienced this before. This was the whole point of a youth clinic: to show young people what the sport is in a lower-stakes environment.
“I remember the feeling of not really embracing what sports means, getting out there on the court, having to run and really engage with other people that you might not know,” she told a group of reporters on Friday following the clinic. “So just getting people to run that usually don’t run, it really — sports liberates you. And I just love to bring that to the youth and show them and be an example for that.”
Sabally was an example, and she broke a sweat while doing it. She ran up and down the court with the young people, played a touch passing game with Allie Moogan, the Liberty’s manager of Social Responsibility and Brooklyn Basketball Community Programs.
Sabally was heavily involved in a game of dribble tag, sometimes chasing some of the students around the court to knock the basketballs out of their hands. Sabally kept fanning herself while she ran around in her tan sweat suit with black, silver and seafoam sneakers along with long hoop earrings and bright red lipstick. Moogan handed her a water bottle at times so she could keep hydrated.
“It’s honestly wonderful for me to be able to do my media day here and them to see what actually goes on as a pro woman in sports, and just to be able to run around a little bit, sweat with them before my actual workout,” she said. “I know I am competitive, even with the girls, so it was good for them to see it.”
Sabally, who up until mid-March was known for her long braids or thick curls, decided to shave her head and chop all of her hair off.
She decided to do this for a multitude of reasons, but she took the opportunity to bring awareness to alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss. Her best friend Sunni Ferri, public relations and communications strategist, was diagnosed with the disease at 17 years old, and Sabally wanted to honor her and help make young women with the disease feel like they aren’t alone.
This new project of Sabally’s came into full focus on Friday. She was asked about the decision following her participation in the clinic, and her first thought was to bring up Ferri to discuss the disease.
Sabally’s media strategy was on full display. She knew that in front of a gaggle of 15 reporters, she wanted Ferri’s story to be out there. She wanted this to continue beyond her Instagram posts.
“I think she’s the best voice to speak for this,” Sabally said about her friend.
But the best voice to speak about her new journey in New York, however, is obviously Sabally. She explained that joining the Liberty felt like some sort of destiny to her. Not only was she born in New York City, but her mother always assumed that she and her sister Nyara were going to play in New York one day.
The two Sabally sisters were ships in the night as Nyara was selected by the Toronto Tempo in the 2026 expansion draft just weeks before her sister signed with the Liberty. Satou noted that she’ll have to acquire Nyara’s map guide or just stalk her previous Instagram posts so that she knows the best spots around the city.
During the Liberty’s 2024 championship run that culminated with Nyara’s heroics in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals, Satou was a fly on the wall. She traveled where the team went not only to support her sister but also to see how the Liberty organization operated.
Back in 2025, the prophesy looked like it would come true: that Satou was going to come to New York during the winter free agency period. But she didn’t, and went to the Phoenix Mercury instead.
While the sisters can’t live out that dream together for now, Satou believes that it’s her role to continue her sister’s legacy.
“She started it, and I’m just continuing something that my little sister started, and she won a championship, she won a ring for the city,” Satou said. “And I want to follow her, follow her footsteps, so that’s truly it — but we were both bummed about it.”
But besides Nyara, Satou’s family, friends and her brand were all a huge part of the decision to come to New York. She explained that when she was in Phoenix the time difference from Germany made it very difficult to talk to her little brothers. Germany is nine hours ahead of Phoenix and she could only really talk to family at 6 a.m. MST.
But she also admitted that she had an ego about the situation in 2025. After going through a season with the Mercury being their leading scorer, and then dealing with a disappointing WNBA Finals that ended in getting swept by the Aces, Sabally flipped the script on well known proverb: ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ Instead: she beat them but joined them.
“I can be a superstar and single myself out on a different team and get that 1.2 or 1.4 [million-dollar contract] but what I really wanted to do is win a championship,” Sabally said. “I think that is missing on my resume. … I do want that ring, and I want to do it alongside people that I trust and alongside people that I want to really compete with, and in a place that embraces sports culture in a different way.”
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The Mercury beat the Liberty in the first round of last year’s playoffs, but Sabally reflected and realized what meant more to her. She wanted to play with “her friends” including Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, with whom she played college basketball at Oregon. The two apparently were squeaking on FaceTime when the news that Satou would be coming to New York was official.
Satou also wanted to reunite with two-time WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart, who she played in Turkey with, and Leonie Fiebich, who she’s known for years on the German national team.
She’s looking forward to playing with Jonquel Jones, who notably became super close with her sister Nyara. And Satou is very excited to finally play with Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. She dreaded being Laney-Hamilton’s opponent as the two would “always fuss against each other on the court”.
“I’m happy to call her my teammate finally,” she said. “Nyara would always say it was really funny because we would actually get along well, but we would always get at it on the court.”
There will be a lot of change for the New York Liberty this season. In addition to Satou, the Liberty will be taking the court with a brand-new coaching staff. While Satou noted that shaving her head was for her friend, it also was a form of self care. It represented a new beginning, one that her new team will be experiencing as well.
Her reasons now seem clear: Satou wanted to be in a place where she could be with people she trusted, she wanted to grow her platform and business like never before in a place that matched her connections to culture and politics, and she wants to win a championship.
That’s a vision that both Satou and the Liberty are aligned on. It was just like when Satou signed all of the posters she could in green Crayola magic marker for the girls at Uncommon Excellence Girls Charter Middle School. She signed one young person’s oaktag poster that was blue.
“I can see it, I know it’s there,” the girl said in reference to the green possibly being hard to see on the blue poster.
Satou has seen the vision for her to be New York. She’s always known that it’s been there.
Listen now to The IX Sports Podcast & Women’s Sports Daily
We are excited to announce the launch of TWO new podcasts for all the women’s sports fans out there looking for a daily dose of women’s sports news and analysis.
Stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts and make sure to subscribe!
