New York Liberty
The Liberty Won the Commissioner’s Cup in June. The Part That Matters Starts Now.
Standings current as of Aug. 26, 2026
New York is 23-15 and headed to the WNBA playoffs, third in the Eastern Conference behind Atlanta and Indiana.
The Liberty have already won something this year. On June 30 at Barclays Center they beat Las Vegas 93-85 to claim the Commissioner’s Cup, becoming the first two-time Cup champions in league history.
That trophy is real. It is also not the one this roster was assembled to win, and everyone in the organization knows it.
Why the season carries this much pressure
The 2024 Liberty went 32-8 and won the franchise’s first WNBA championship, beating Minnesota in a five-game Finals.
The 2025 title defense ended in the first round. Phoenix won a winner-take-all Game 3 in Arizona, 79-73, with Breanna Stewart playing on a sprained MCL she’d suffered in overtime of Game 1. She scored six points in a blowout Game 2 loss and then produced one of the more remarkable performances of her career trying to save Game 3.
Management’s response was to fire head coach Sandy Brondello, who had gone 107-53 across four seasons with two Finals appearances and a title. General manager Jonathan Kolb talked about being proactive, about evolution and innovation.
That’s a front office saying the standard is a championship, not a playoff berth.
What changed, and what didn’t
The core stayed. Despite Kolb’s language, there was never serious indication the Liberty would break up Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones. They chose to add to it rather than rebuild it.
Chris DeMarco is the new head coach.
Satou Sabally arrived in free agency — from the Phoenix team that ended New York’s season. She suffered a severe concussion in the 2025 WNBA Finals that cost her the entire Unrivaled season before she was cleared to return to basketball activities.
Nyara Sabally left, selected by the expansion Toronto Tempo — where Brondello now coaches.
The Cup game showed what this team can be
Ionescu scored 26 with five rebounds and five assists in the Commissioner’s Cup final, her best performance of a season disrupted by a run of injuries. Stewart took Cup MVP with 25 points on 9-of-16 shooting and 11 rebounds.
The decisive sequence was the two of them. Las Vegas took a 71-69 lead with 7:35 left in the fourth. Ionescu and Stewart came off the bench and led a 12-0 run that ended it.
Rookie Pauline Astier added 15 points against the reigning champions — a useful data point for a roster that needs contribution beyond its three stars.
The two questions that decide October
Ionescu’s three-point shot. In 2025 she attempted 7.1 threes per game — her lowest rate since 2022 — and made just 29% of them, the worst percentage of her career. For a player whose shooting was once her defining skill, both the volume and the accuracy need to come back. That’s partly on her and partly on DeMarco building a system that encourages it.
Stewart’s age and health. She’s 31 and turns 32 before this season ends. She has been the ultimate matchup problem in this league for a decade — able to pull rim protectors away from the basket or punish smaller defenders inside — and she spent last postseason doing it on a damaged knee.
What New York actually brings to a playoff series
Postseason experience, and the specific kind that changes a series before it starts.
Stewart is a nightmare to game-plan for. Ionescu creates advantages without requiring the offense to run entirely through one action. And this group has already navigated the emotional swings of a championship run, which is not nothing against opponents who haven’t.
Around the league, that combination is the reason the Liberty are a team contenders would rather avoid regardless of seed.
What has to happen
- Health, first and last. The 2025 season was defined by injuries to nearly everyone, and 2026 has had its own run.
- Ionescu shooting like herself. The Cup final was the proof of concept.
- Sabally integrated. A midseason concussion recovery is not a small thing to fold into a title team.
- Win a round. Anything less and the window question gets asked much louder.
Las Vegas are the defending champions. Minnesota has been the league’s best team all year. Indiana is rising. New York has the trophy from June and roughly six weeks to get the one that matters.
NYC Sports Wire covers Liberty news, schedules and game coverage all season. See the Liberty schedule for tip-off times and broadcast info.