NEW YORK — Screams echoed from the visiting locker room at Barclays Center into the surrounding hallways.
Another team traveled to Brooklyn and was celebrating leaving with a win. This time, it was the start-up Portland Fire, who were headed back to the Pacific Northwest with a seven-point victory against the supposedly bigger, better Liberty. A day before, it was the Dallas Wings. And days before that, it was the Golden State Valkyries.
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The Fire’s cheers carried well after the final buzzer sounded. Then came the music.
“Psst… I see dead people.”
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” served as the walkup song for Fire coach Alex Sarama, Carla Leite and Teja Oblak as they took the postgame podium to discuss delivering another Liberty post-mortem. Around the corner, New York’s first-year coach, Chris DeMarco, was giving his own explanation, as were Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones.
“Nobody expected this,” Stewart said last month.
The Liberty came into the WNBA’s historic 30th season carrying the title-contending expectations that come with a roster of its caliber less than two years removed from winning its first. An overhaul to the coaching staff was intended to maximize the franchise’s championship window.
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But a month in, the franchise’s worst start since 2022 amid injuries and absences raises the question: Do they have enough to dethrone the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces?
Social media was not typically a place that stirs a reaction from Jones.
However, on this particular April day, during the sprint that was WNBA free agency, a hot take piqued her interest enough to warrant a text to general manager Jonathan Kolb.
The speculative report she shared with Kolb: Stewie and Sabrina are signed, but Jones might be headed elsewhere. “Where are they getting this information?” she asked.
The futures of Jones, Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu in Brooklyn were not in question. In fact, the Liberty’s big three never even took meetings with other teams, each told The Athletic. Not because they couldn’t command offers elsewhere, but because they were committed to keeping open the championship window in New York. So much so that they each inked three-year deals.
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Some 2,500 miles to the west, the Aces locked down their core with four-time MVP A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Jewell Loyd all committing to Las Vegas through the 2028 season. Four-time All-Star and two-time All-WNBA second team guard Jackie Young curiously did not make a long-term commitment to the Aces. Instead, she opted to sign a one-year contract at the standard max.
Championship windows aren’t created equal.
Some are built from the ground up. The Aces, for example, constructed their championship era with three consecutive No. 1 overall draft picks: Kelsey Plum (2017), Wilson (2018) and Young (2019). From there, they added WNBA champions such as Gray (2021), Candace Parker (2023) and Loyd (2025) in free agency.
Others are constructed in response.
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“I just had a feeling that this year we were going to have to go through them to win a championship,” Jones said.
Jones’ musing wasn’t epiphanic in nature. It’s a relatively obvious conjecture given the Aces have won three of the last four WNBA titles. But the sentiment derives from the lived experiences of Jones and her teammates. In the last four years, only one team has bested the three-time champions in the postseason: the 2024 Liberty.
Their starting five that season, outside of Ionescu, who they drafted first overall in 2020, was built through free agency in an effort to shorten the Aces’ dynasty window. In fact, Nyara Sabally was the only Liberty draftee other than Ionescu who played considerable minutes on the 2024 roster.
The Liberty and Aces haven’t exactly traded title runs over the last four years. But they are the only two team names inscribed on the WNBA’s sterling silver trophy between 2022 and 2025.
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“It should be our turn, right?” Stewart said while grinning.
The offseason overhaul executed by Kolb was all in an effort to ensure 2026 is the Liberty’s turn.
It started with a change at the top.
The Liberty hired WNBA championship-winning coach Sandy Brondello before the 2022 season, fresh off a WNBA Finals run with the Phoenix Mercury. She became the winningest coach in franchise history, with a 123-64 overall record, highlighted by the franchise’s first title. Despite her success, speculation circulated around the league that the Liberty were expected to move on from her following a disappointing 2025 campaign.
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On paper, it’s difficult to say where the Liberty’s 2025 roster really stood to get better. It was widely regarded as one of the deepest collections of talent in the WNBA, leaving a tiny margin for improvement. There was a stronger case to be made that the Liberty’s issues last season derived from a failure to maximize that talent, reinforcing the overhaul to the coaching staff.
On Sept. 23, the Liberty announced Brondello’s contract wouldn’t be renewed. A lack of partnership between Brondello and Kolb, a sometimes-stagnant offense and injuries that resulted in 18 starting lineups during the 2025 season all led to New York seeking a coaching change that led it to DeMarco.
Kolb repeatedly emphasized a changing WNBA landscape and the Liberty’s need to keep pace with those changes in his news conference explaining the split with Brondello.
Seven of the WNBA’s 13 teams in 2025 were led by first-year coaches, and this season, with 15 teams, there are four rookie coaches.
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Aces coach Becky Hammon became the first coach in WNBA history to win a title in her debut season outside of Houston Comets coach Van Chancellor who won the WNBA’s inaugural title in 1997. DeMarco will look to become the second.
He spent 14 seasons climbing the coaching ranks with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, including four NBA championship seasons (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022) before taking the Liberty job. He’s also coached the Bahamian men’s national team since 2019. In 2024, he led them on a historic run when they came within one game of qualifying for the program’s first Olympic berth. The Bahamas ultimately lost to Spain in the FIBA Olympic qualifying tournament final 86-78.
With a new coach, keeping the big three was paramount.
“You want to capitalize on the fact that this is a group that is primed to win,” Jones said. “We want to do it now because tomorrow, next year, it isn’t promised.”
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Liberty rookie Pauline Astier was late to pick up Kahleah Copper.
Before she realized it, Alyssa Thomas’ pass to her in the left corner was already a 3-point attempt. Copper’s make had barely bounced off the court when DeMarco emphatically called a timeout and marched to New York’s bench.
The Liberty were on the brink of a defensive breakdown against the Phoenix Mercury on May 27, the effects of which they’d seen ripple into losses and DeMarco reached his breaking point.
“Play some f— defense,” Leonie Fiebich recalled as the Cliff Note version of DeMarco’s message.
That huddle procured a 23-0 run from the Liberty and ultimately a win, snapping their three-game losing streak.
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The Liberty spoke to several candidates, including former assistant coach Sonia Raman and the Mercury associate head coach Kristi Toliver. Ultimately, the franchise followed the trend started by some of their contemporaries, including the Aces, and brought in an NBA assistant. (Raman was hired by the Storm, and Toliver is still with the Mercury.)
The early returns on DeMarco, even amid New York’s stumbles, have been positive. Players have heralded his direct coaching style and an offensive system that is predicated on spacing principles and constant player movement, freeing up cutters and allowing players to attack one-on-one matchups. It helps that Kolb filled out the Liberty’s roster with players who aren’t pigeonholed to one position, allowing for more versatility.
The Liberty became the first team in WNBA history to average at least 100 points through the first four games, going 3-1 in that stretch. But their offensive output has since tapered as they’ve struggled to handle ball pressure. In their last five games, the Liberty are seventh in the league, averaging 15.4 turnovers per game and eighth in average number of points given up off turnovers, also 15.4 in that same stretch.
“There’s a lot we’re going to want to do as the year goes on,” DeMarco said. “Once our full team’s here and healthy. But our players have done such a wonderful job of sharing the ball early and creating shots for each other. I think defensively we’ll continue to compete as we figure out schematically what we’re trying to accomplish on that end as well.”
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This time last year, the Liberty were off to the best start in franchise history, rattling off nine consecutive wins, starting with their season opener against the Aces. But what followed was a year marked by inconsistency.
The converse was true for the Aces. After one of its most inconsistent starts in its championship era, Las Vegas closed the regular season with a 16-game winning streak, which tied the 2014 Mercury for the second longest in WNBA history.
Both teams reloaded during the condensed free agency window. Outside of re-signing their core, the Aces added veteran role players in forwards Stephanie Talbot and Brianna Turner and a cheat code in guard Chennedy Carter, who has poured in 134 points off the bench through seven games.
Meanwhile, in New York, guard Betnijah Laney-Hamilton is back after missing the 2025 season due to surgery for her left knee meniscus injury. Kolb also got a “unicorn” in forward Satou Sabally, who he signed to a two-year deal, and a pro-caliber rookie in Astier, who went undrafted in 2022.
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But both teams go as their heroes do. As deep as each team’s roster is, no one puts on the cape quite like Wilson and Stewart.
Wilson has been named MVP in three of the last four seasons. The year she didn’t win, 2023, it went to Stewart.
Stewart averaged 21.2 points per game, nine rebounds and 2.2 assists through the Liberty’s first seven games this season. Wilson averaged 24.3 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists through that same stretch.
Their individual race, which exists in concert with their teams’ championship windows, isn’t about one-upping each other, Stewart said. It’s about mutual respect between players and a desire to elevate the game.
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“Every year we want to bring something new to our bag,” Stewart said. “And when our teams play against each other, it’s going to be a movie.”
“Is it a rivalry?” Wilson said in response to that very question. “I mean people are probably going to say that. But with us, we’re just trying to compete at a high level.”
As the league stretches into the latter part of this decade, the challenge 14 of the WNBA’s 15 teams are facing is no longer about halting the Aces’ dynasty. Their three titles in four years already solidified it.
The task for the Liberty now, and any other team in title contention, is disrupting what’s already been established.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
New York Liberty, WNBA
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