Barbara Barker: Why have the Liberty been such a big disappointment this WNBA season?
Sabrina Ionescu of the Liberty draws a foul against Kayla McBride of the Minnesota Lynx in the first quarter at Target Center on July 11 in Minneapolis. Credit: Getty Images/David Berding
Can the Liberty turn this season around?
Can they flip the switch after the All-Star break and play like the contender everyone expected them to be? Or will they continue to be a middle-of-the-pack team as they struggle to establish an identity under first-year coach Chris DeMarco?
Heading into the final two months of the season, the Liberty have been one of the biggest disappointments in what has been a decidedly strange WNBA season. Who would have thought that the Liberty and defending champion Las Vegas would be underperforming for long stretches and that Golden State, a team that is in its second year of existence, would have the second-best record (19-8) in the league?
The Liberty (15-12), who are in seventh place in the standings, need to quickly build on their two solid wins over Dallas and Chicago heading into the break.
Before that, they had lost eight of 10 games, including four in a row. The 2-8 stretch was the Liberty’s worst since 2022, the year before Breanna Stewart joined the team. What made the skid so puzzling is that immediately before it began, the Liberty had won eight straight and were battling for the league’s top spot with an 11-4 record.
Stewart, who has been the one consistent top performer, said after the Liberty’s comeback win over Chicago on Wednesday that it has been a trying month.
“There was moments where it’s like shock,” she said. “You’re like, ‘Well, what the [heck] are we doing here? Why is this happening?’ ”
Stewart believes the key is for the team to take one game at a time and get in position to at least have home-court advantage in the playoffs. The Liberty are 6½ games behind first-place Minnesota and three games behind fourth-place Dallas, which is in the final playoff spot that is guaranteed home-court advantage in the first round.
“Now we’re kind of like leveling out a little bit,” Stewart said. “And we’re like, if this is going to be us, and this is what we’re going to do, and not too high or too low . . . and we’re not looking too far ahead, we’re just looking at the next game.”
Injuries have played a significant role in the Liberty’s struggles. Sabrina Ionescu missed 12 of the first 13 games with ankle and back injuries and only recently has begun to look like her All-Star self. Starting forward Satou Sabally has missed 10 games with a concussion and Leonie Fiebich hasn’t played since July 3 because of a sore foot.
The presumed starting lineup of Sabally, Fiebich, Stewart, Ionescu and Jonquel Jones has had a grand total of 25 minutes of floor time together this season.
Yet beyond injuries, during their 2-8 stretch, there seemed to be some late-game miscommunication and perhaps even chemistry issues as players adjusted to playing for a new staff that has said it is still experimenting with rotations.
This all seemed to come to a head in an embarrassing 108-88 loss in Indianapolis on July 18. Afterward, the team held a 30-minute meeting in which the need to reverse the course was discussed.
“We know we’re in it right now,” DeMarco said. “We have to find a way out of it, find a way to play 40 minutes . . . When you are losing, everything feels very heavy. We have to find a way to come together and turn the tide.”
The Liberty have looked fairly together in the two games since. In coming back from 12-point deficits in wins over Dallas and Chicago, they have executed their offense and made key stops down the stretch.
Perhaps the most promising sign has been the play of Ionescu, who seems be regaining her All-Star form even though she wasn’t invited to play in this past weekend’s All-Star Game.
Ionescu has averaged 23.0 points in the past five games after averaging 10.7 in her first 10. She almost singlehandedly pushed the team to a one-point win over Chicago, scoring nine of her 29 points in the final minute.
“For me personally, it was a rough first couple months of the season, especially being out with injury,” she said. “It’ll be nice knowing I kind of have a clean slate into this All-Star break to start the second half of the season feeling really good, strong and ready to make a really good push.”
A strong push is exactly what this team needs to get back to where it wants to go.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
