In Super Squads, The Athletic follows the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces in their quests to win a WNBA championship. Our reporters will tell the stories of the players on two of the most star-studded teams in league history and examine how their paths shape the future of the WNBA.
NEW YORK — A few days after the end of the New York Liberty’s 2022 season, general manager Jonathan Kolb, assistant general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and assistant coach Olaf Lange gathered with head coach Sandy Brondello in her office for an exit meeting. They discussed the team’s growth throughout the summer and offseason development plans for players on their roster. They also confronted the reality that the next few months could change not only the franchise’s future but the WNBA’s too.
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Kolb had written the names of three All-Star players on his office whiteboard: Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot. New York would target three of the top players in the league heading into the winter. An ambitious undertaking, but one he felt was possible. Stewart was set to become an unrestricted free agent and had met with New York brass the previous offseason. Prior to the ’22 campaign, Jones told the Connecticut Sun front office that it might be her last season with the franchise, a situation Kolb had heard rumblings about. In the August exit meeting, he also floated the possibility of adding Vandersloot, a record-setting point guard who had spent the first 12 years of her WNBA career with Chicago but, like Stewart, could be going elsewhere.
“There’s a world where this could happen,” Kolb recalls telling those in the room. He asked his team’s coaches about how the trio — which had made 12 combined All-Star appearances and six finals appearances — would fit with each other and within the context of the franchise. Brondello had never seriously considered adding Vandersloot before. But it was in this meeting, Kolb said, “when we really got granular.”
The grains of New York’s historic offseason trace back to 2019, when the franchise was acquired by Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai and was still playing at the Westchester County Center. That season, players lived in Brooklyn and practiced at St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn. On home game days, the Liberty rented day rooms at a hotel in Westchester so players could rest north of New York City. “Did I know in ’19 that we would end up here? Absolutely not,” Kolb said. “But the goal was let’s treat this like we will be in contention, and it’ll happen. And we’re fortunate that we’re here.”
By “here,” Kolb means watching a training camp practice in which Stewart, Jones and Vandersloot all were wearing Liberty jerseys. He means having star acquisitions complement recent All-Stars Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney. He means having Brondello, a former WNBA champion coach with the Phoenix Mercury, on the sideline at the Barclays Center and orchestrating calls in huddles.
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Entering the 2023 WNBA season, which begins Friday, the Liberty aspire to win their first title in franchise history and New York City’s first in professional basketball since the Knicks in 1973. Those within the franchise speak of loftier goals too: They want to be an organization that sets league-wide standards across all departments. For those reasons, plus one related to a personal homecoming, Stewart tells The Athletic, “When I (was) thinking about where I wanted to be this upcoming season, I could only think about New York.”
Still, in the weeks before she and Vandersloot would leave the only WNBA franchises they had played for, Jones had to make her own decision. It would prove to be the choice that put everything that followed into motion.
Last September, as A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces celebrated their first title in franchise history on Connecticut’s home floor, Jones strode toward one of the tunnels leading to the underbelly of Mohegan Sun Arena for what turned out to be her final time in a Sun uniform. Nine months earlier, she had re-signed with the Sun on a two-year deal. Jones had grown up with the franchise, going from the sixth pick in the 2016 draft to winning league MVP in 2021. But as she returned, she made clear to Sun coach/general manager Curt Miller and president Jennifer Rizzotti that if she wanted to leave following the season, she would give them a list of teams and hope they respected her wishes.
Jones said she never revisited the topic once the season began. Yet as she reflected on her future shortly after the Sun’s final’s elimination, she had a gut feeling that “maybe it’s time for me to start a new journey.” By early January, she had requested a trade.
New York was on her list. And while Jones, Vandersloot and Stewart formed a group text in which they discussed their futures, Kolb said the Liberty’s plans to pair Jones with Stewart and Vandersloot never came up in discussions with the 2021 WNBA MVP. “I’m putting us in a really really bad spot if we’re promising something that’s not gonna happen,” he said.
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Instead, the Liberty leaned on a player they had under contract to sway Jones: Ionescu, the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, who made her first All-Star team last summer. Having secured permission to talk with the Sun big, in early January, Jones and her agent, Boris Lelchitski, joined Kolb, Brondello, Nyanin and Ionescu on a video conference call in which Ionescu praised the 6-foot-6 forward as “the best stretch-four in the league.”
“I pitched her as hard as I could,” Ionescu said.
Nevertheless, Jones said there were days she considered playing for the Washington Mystics in 2023. As she weighed which franchise she wanted to join, Jones remembered Mike Thibault, then both the Mystics’ coach and general manager, as the first professional coach to watch her play in college at George Washington. She recalled him telling her, “You could be a pro,” when few others did. Thibault, she said, even told her Washington would pick her if she was on the board at the time of its No. 7 pick. She went one selection earlier.
In the Mystics, Jones valued the championship-caliber talent on their roster, and her professional relationship with Thibault’s son, Eric, who was promoted to head coach this offseason.
New York, though, had its own appeal. Playing with Ionescu was interesting, as was joining an organization that had shown an investment in its players. As Jones deliberated, she reiterated to Vandersloot and Stewart a desire to play with them in the future, building on the relationship they formed in Russia, playing together with UMMC Ekaterinburg for two seasons. Through text messages, the trio thought about life with the Liberty. Jones needed to hear their voices, though. In early January, knowing she had to make the first move, she initiated a group call. “How y’all feeling? Because this is a big decision,” Jones said. She recalls telling them, “I’m doing this because of y’all. That I’m gonna trust that y’all have my back.”
“I can’t turn down the opportunity to play with them,” she said she thought to herself.
Despite their “strong interest” to play together, Vandersloot said, “We all decided that we were gonna make the best decision for ourselves.” And Jones knew she couldn’t force them into anything. She asked herself whether she’d still be happy choosing the Liberty, even if Vandersloot or Stewart didn’t sign with them. “When I could answer that question and say I would still be OK with it,” she said, “I was like, ‘It’s going to be New York.’”
Kolb had never visited Istanbul, Turkey, before. But a trip to the transcontinental country was well-warranted if it meant meeting with Stewart, who was settling into a key role with European power Fenerbahçe in January as WNBA free agency got underway.
Liberty brass and Stewart had a pre-existing relationship. A year earlier, they met in Los Angeles when Stewart entered free agency for the first time. Back then, New York’s management wanted her to get to know them personally and as an organization. Stewart, the 2018 WNBA MVP, was interested enough to take the meeting. She had done her research, pointing out to Kolb he didn’t have a Wikipedia page. “But I wasn’t ready to come,” she said. It would have been difficult to leave her pick-and-roll partner Sue Bird before Bird’s final season with the Seattle Storm.
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A year later, the groundwork had been laid. “It felt like it was a continuation,” Kolb said. Over three days in Istanbul, the Liberty spent time exclusively with Stewart. They stayed within walking distance of Fenerbahçe’s arena and saw the eventual EuroLeague champions compete. They had two dinners and a morning meeting with Stewart.
Kolb, Nyanin, Brondello and Wu Tsai restated the organization’s values and stressed their commitment to equity between the Liberty and the Brooklyn Nets. They discussed wanting to “be the standard” of the league. “Our conversations were centered on that,” Kolb said. “I think we have a mission to win a championship, but we also have a mission to push this league as far forward as you can.”
When Brondello left Istanbul, she felt confident, “but not overconfident,” she said. Stewart additionally met with the Mystics, Lynx and Storm, who ended up as her second choice. She talked through the decision with her wife Marta Xargay, who once played in the WNBA for Brondello and spoke highly of her. As a Syracuse, N.Y., native, Stewart returning to the state was another draw. “I knew for a while after those meetings that New York was it,” she said. “But I was waiting for the right time to tell them and not have the craziness while I was playing EuroLeague games.”
On Jan. 31, just over two weeks after Jones had been traded to the Liberty in a three-team deal, Stewart decided it was time to finally inform the Liberty. Around midnight, hours after Fenerbahçe picked up a road victory in Prague, Xargay sent Brondello a text asking her if she was awake. Brondello was in her pajamas, at a hotel in Budapest, where she had been visiting members of the Australian national team. Nevertheless, she replied that she was available. Then she waited and waited and waited. “I’m like s—, am I going to sleep or am I staying up?” Brondello remembers thinking.
Around 12:45 a.m., Brondello was patched into a group video call with Kolb, Nyanin and, of course, Stewart. The two-time WNBA champion was wearing a Liberty shirt. The group rejoiced. At 12:01 p.m. (ET) the following day — on the first official day free agents could sign contracts — Stewart shared her decision publicly.
— Breanna Stewart (@breannastewart) February 1, 2023
At the time of Stewart’s announcement, Vandersloot wasn’t sure where she would end up. Like Stewart, she was weighing whether to leave her longtime WNBA home with the Chicago Sky. Unlike Stewart, though, that possible new team happened to be nearly 3,000 miles from Kent, Wash., where she grew up.
Vandersloot had been a free agent before. In the months after Chicago’s WNBA championship in 2021, the four-time All-Star thought for the first time about leaving the franchise. Like star forward Candace Parker, however, she returned to the Sky last season in an effort to win consecutive titles. After coming up short, Vandersloot wanted to “take a real legit look at going somewhere else” this winter.
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Vandersloot traveled to Brooklyn at the start of free agency. Over parts of two days, Kolb said the Liberty helped the 34-year-old guard “try on New York.” She saw the Liberty’s facility and walked around the Dumbo neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge. She ordered from a bagel place. “Making sure I lived the New York lifestyle,” she said.
As important to Vandersloot as alleviating concerns about living in New York was understanding what her role might be with the Liberty. Multiple conversations with Ionescu helped clarify that. Vandersloot said when she first heard New York was interested in her, she thought, “But why? They have Sabrina.” Through their talks, though, she learned Ionescu felt Vandersloot’s presence could benefit both players, as well as the Liberty. Vandersloot would play primarily on-ball. Ionescu would play primarily off-ball, a role she thrived in last summer. Toward the end of their first call, Ionescu told Vandersloot, “Please come.”
Vandersloot was attracted to the idea of being a big piece of a puzzle the front office had been building. “That I was going into something that they had planned,” she said. Another “small part” of the Liberty’s appeal was learning from Kolb. Though she feels she still has “a lot to give” as a player, Vandersloot said she’s interested in becoming a general manager after she retires.
And yet, she weighed whether to return to the Sky, enjoy a homecoming with the Storm or quarterback the Lynx in the post-Sylvia Fowles era. Vandersloot said: “I couldn’t find anything wrong about the other (options).” Plus, as the process dragged on, she started having doubts about New York, wondering why she was holding back from committing to something that “looked so perfect on paper.” It took until the night of Feb. 1 to decide she wanted to play for the Liberty, and not the Lynx.
She talked to Lange and Brondello that evening and wanting to strengthen her connection to Kolb, she phoned him, too. Vandersloot reflected that as they spoke, “We just connected on a different level than we had.”
“I had no plans of making the decision right then and there, but I did,” she added. “I just felt it in the moment.”
The following day, she shared the news publicly.
#BREAKING Courtney Vandersloot is signing with the New York Liberty🗽✍🏼
— Courtney Vandersloot (@Sloot22) February 2, 2023
“I wanted to kiss her on the forehead,” Ionescu said.
Shortly before 1 p.m. on May 6, Stewart, Jones and Vandersloot joined their teammates at midcourt on the Liberty’s home floor. At that point, the trio had yet to take a single rep together in practice. Vandersloot was in concussion protocol, Jones was nursing a foot injury and Stewart was easing into her time with the franchise. They were in the arena, nevertheless, much to the delight of the few hundred fans who had watched the two-hour open practice that afternoon. Some spectators held signs that read “Get loud” and “Let me hear you.” Throughout the workout, the crowd occasionally broke into cheers even as three of its biggest stars looked on. “Seeing them out here, it’s nuts,” Kolb said.
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The task is now about bringing those August fit discussions to fruition. Thanks to a historic offseason and an already deep roster, Brondello has an abundance of lineup options. As an example, New York could thrive with Jones and Stewart at the four and five, or slide another center beside them and play big. What Kolb thought could have happened at the end of last summer did happen. Now, the names on his whiteboard have to jell in real life.
The Super Squads series is part of a partnership with Google Lens. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photo of Breanna Stewart: Mike Lawrence / Getty)